One More Time

The magic number seems to be five when it comes to the agent process. I had five agents reading A House Made of Stars for a while, then last week, got a rejection for one of the full manuscripts. It was kind, praising the voice of the child narrator, but in the end, was still a rejection.

But this morning, I got another full request from a new agent bringing the total back up to five again.

Since it's been a few months since I first started querying, I'm used to the rejections now and they don't sting quite as much, but it's always funny to see other people's reactions to them. My grandmother is very excited about this whole thing and she was sitting next to me when I got this last rejection. I read it on my phone and passed it to her when she wanted to see. Granted, the reasons for rejection were a little vague (though I am very grateful the agent took the time to make it a personal email), but it was hilarious to watch my grandmother squint as she read the email aloud, slowing down over the reasons why they rejected it, then look up, and exclaim, "what does that even mean?"

She gets more upset than I do, haha, but I can't wait to see what her reaction will be to good news. If there is good news, that is.

I got some feedback recently from one of my committee members on the dissertation. It was the most thorough and comprehensive review I've ever gotten on a piece of writing and I am immeasurably grateful to her to putting so much time into reading and responding to it. She was so encouraging and coined some of the best adjectives, including one of my favorites--"ninja-level impressive"--that I think I will start using now to describe things :)

The review also mentioned something that I had been thinking of lately, but didn't quite want to admit--that I need to dive back into the book one more time. The book is short compared to a lot of other novels and I had originally written the book to be much longer, but then when I ran into pacing issues, my dissertation director and I cut the novel way down to its current length.

But as she pointed out, it's not the beginning or the middle that needs more--it's the end. 50-100 pages more at the end. And I have a feeling she is right.

I've been letting my mind wander these past few days, thinking of scenes to add, and directions to take it. Originally, the book after A House Made of Stars was going to take place a few years afterwards, but I was stumped at how to bridge the gap between these two books. Extending the ending of A House Made of Stars will make this easier. It will also help me add more "twists and turns" that one agent who had rejected the full said that it needed.

While rejections are disappointing, they are also immensely helpful. Hiring an editor for a full-length project is extremely expensive and when agents read a full manuscript and give you detailed feedback, it's like getting a free editing job. Same for getting notes from committee members. These people know what they are talking about and they are doing you a huge favor in responding to your work.

I'm looking forward to diving back in and seeing where it takes me. Unfortunately, I have AWP papers and a book review ahead of it in the work queue, but I'll let the ideas continue to float around until then. So if you see me staring into space or if I appear absent-minded in the next few weeks, the gears in my head are just turning. No need to worry :)