The first two arrived on Friday. One was a basic form letter. A “project not a good fit for me.” I’ve seen that close to a hundred times.

The other was that my novel’s style wasn’t a good fit for the agent.

Not going to lie, I received the second rejection as I was walking into Barnes and Noble with my daughter. And for the last five years, Barnes and Noble has come to feel like the physical embodiment of my failure. Now, don’t go all “Oh, gracless, you haven’t failed!” I’ve got about 122 rejections to show that you’re wrong.

You see, Barnes and Noble is where I aspire to see my books. Yes, plural. And they’re not there yet. But that doesn’t make it any easier to walk into the creative oasis and NOT see my writing because that is exactly where I want to see my book’s cover. My name. My titles. My dreams.

So, it’s Friday. And I just received a very nice, very personal rejection and I’m aching emotionally. And that achiness lasted for a while. Until I realized that my query letter did something right. It drew the agent in. And she read my pages. And that’s when my style didn’t work for her. Which is fine. Because I know that she read my pages.

I don’t know why that matters so much to me. But it does. Maybe it’s because the only people who have read my pages are friends and family and they are so wonderful and complimentary. Which really boosts my spirits and motivates me to walk back into my world and read my pages and improve the writing.

But it’s something else to have a complete stranger read them. And, yes, it was a rejection.

Which sucks. Royally. Especially as I was walking into a literary oasis. Into the landscape of my dreams.

And I grieved. A little. I knew that I was going to have to experience rejection in order to achieve a yes. Don’t know why that syllogism exists, especially when I hear about writers landing agents because of networking which I really suck at. But this is my path. And I have to walk my path in order to achieve my success. As modest or as amazing as it is going to be.

But in the end, my pages were read. And they’re going to be read again by other complete strangers. And I still have faith that eventually I will be published. Old school way. It’s just that the worst letters in the world are still lingering over my dream.

TBD.

Regardless, in the end, I will determine my fate. One letter at a time. And today, I’m going to work on a Midsummer Night’s Nightmare, the sequel to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.