Word count goal for this week: 32 500 words
Word count goal so far: 18 517 words
Writing.
I write because I love it, because I can’t help it. When I write books, I feel alive.
I’m doing what I am supposed to be doing: coming up with stories to share with people, to make them laugh and dream, to help ease their sorrow, to give hope when all hope has been taken away.
So it doesn’t feel great, getting a rejection letter.
Especially a standard rejection letter, the one they send when just one person in the publishing house read, oh, between one and ten pages of the book before deciding going « No », or « Yes » (reminder, I live in a small francophone bubble in Canada, with a very small market and no literary agent).
But it is such a small thing. After all, I received many rejection letters. I’m almost used to it.
Plus, for a whole year, part of my job at a publisher’s house was to send those exact same rejections letters; trust me, I know the drill!
But every now and then, the received rejection letter will hit me a little harder.
Because I have good reasons to believe it might work with one or two publishers.
In this case, I sent a good contemporary YA novel to publishers who were looking very specifically for contemporary YA novels.
I did my research, I read some of the novels the publishers have published before, to make sure my novel would stand out while respecting the publishers editorial line.
I really thought it would work. *deep sight*
When it was time to get some creative writing work done, I did some screen staring/shopping for kiddo clothes/pinning things about rejection on Pinterest for a while.
A sentence heard on NovelTea Show was doing loops in my head the whole time: you fail only if you stop writing.
So, I went and did some writing. Plus a mega-ton of editing.
I was merciless with my writing. Erase stuff, straighten some other stuff. Doesn’t matter if I end up erasing it during revision. I felt better just by working harder on the storytelling, on the phrasing, on the characters.
Game plan for next week is : keep the same word count goal. Writing rush week was a total disaster.
I don’t need to feel miserable because the word count isn’t going up fast enough.
I need to feel good because the writing is decent, at the very least.
Thank you for reading. I hope my rambling was in some weird way helpful.
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Until next time!
Marie Alice Writes & Reads 