Grrr!

The other night I received yet another rejection letter. Sigh. I hate getting the constant rejection letters. The bright spot was this agent said, “you’re almost there.” That’s nice. Smooths the sting out a little bit.

But still. It flat out sucks. Especially when I know The Coppersmith is a good story. Good premise. Good writing. Good beginning, middle, and ending.

I admit I probably haven’t written a best seller. What do you want for a first novel? But I know the story is good, and the writing better than a lot of what has been published out there (yeah, I know. This complaint is heard a lot. I can prove it though. Just read Dwellers. You’ll see what I mean.).

It’s almost as though I can either tone down the Christianity to make the story palatable for secular markets, or tone down the dark suspense to make it palatable for the blue-hairs that Christian agents seem to think comprise the Christian market.

Or, I can try to edit the book to push it past all expectations for a first novel and break new ground. That’s appealing, of course, except that I’m tired of trying to rewrite the darn thing. I just want it to be accepted already.

Or, I can just shove it in a drawer (virtual, of course) and fuggedaboutit. Write something else. Try something else. And there’s real appeal to this. I think I sorta need to move on. I have too many other stories to write and tell. Putting out another novel will broaden my experience and strengthen my credibility. Not to mention improve my writing through practice. Stephen King was rejected on his first two novels before he broke through with Carrie (if memory serves). That may be the course I have to take.

The Autographs is about half done, by word count. I need to finish it and start trying to publish it right now. And just keep trying. One of these novels is going to break through. There are still more to write.