May 13

Waiting can be as difficult as rejection. While rejection is cut and dried-"Sorry your work isn't right for us at this time." Waiting seems endless. I've always filled the waiting with work... write a different book. Write a partial for the second in a series in the off chance the first sells. Write more queries. Write.

And yet the waiting niggles the back of my mind...I picture my manuscript holding up someone's desk. Lost in the shuffle... fallen behind a credenza. What is going on with the full at Dorechester? Didn't I read where they bought someone else 30 days after the manuscript was mailed in? How the heck did that happen? It's been a year. But I've heard war stories of getting a call to buy after three years. Why do I seem to always get the longer wait? I need to nudge them.

Fear creeps in...why nudge them? do I really want another rejection? But limbo is also a form of rejection. This week on my todo list is the note to contact them and find out what is going on with that book. Rejection is a form of closure. But my twisted hopeful mind says, if I get that rejection then the book goes into the dead baby morgue-having made the rounds. If I let the waiting continue there is always hope... I like to cling to the hope sometimes too long.

Here's a laugh- I've actually gotten rejection letters so many years later that I don't remember what book they were looking at. Form letters don't list the title. I simple laugh and shrug and add it to the pile.

But not this time. This time I'm going to pester them to send me the rejection now or buy the darn book. Closure is good for the soul.