The Unexpected Thing

I learn something new about the path to being published every day. Truly, it's the most hardcore, hands-on lessons I've ever been given.

I know I ranted a bit last night about feeling unworthy in my own writing. I think this is a furthering of that emotion.

I thought I would be very excited to have five agents reading my work. For the record, I would hate anyone whose blog I came across and they were whining about five agents reading their work. I wouldn't begrudge them their happiness, I would begrudge them their right to bitch about it.

So please believe I'm not actively bitching. I'm thrilled--deep in the gut happy--that five people out of eleven wanted to read anything I've written. I'm not being weepy; I might be hedging toward angsty. My problem is another I couldn't have foreseen.

The more people who are reading my MS, the more people who could reject it. And this is not a reject based on the dreaded query I'm talking about. I don't care how talented you are. Writing queries is an animal of a whole other breed. You can't spend ten minutes on a writers' website without being offered a book to improve your query. Or an article, or blog post, or the contact info of someone who specializes in doctoring queries. The latter of which, I must honestly admit, feels distinctly like cheating.

So I've come to terms with the fact my queries probably suck out loud. At least a little.

But my novel. Hell, that's what I do. I'm a writer. I write. Writing is me. So if my novel is rejected, that's big. Big, hairy, and ugly. The novel has been written, edited, and polished within an inch of its sweet little life. I've done my best, or the best I can do without feedback. I'm a writing teacher; I deeply understand the failings of the human mind in regard to self-editing. My students can't get a misplaced comma past me on a slow day. But in my own writing, I either see what's not there as though it was, or I miss things that shouldn't be there at all.

If I'm rejected at this point, does that mean I quit?

No. Because as the bio says, dammit, I can't.