The Great Rewrite

If you've not noticed the counter jump on my dreaded Denied-O-Meter to the right, then you should know that I'm getting rejections/denials from my manuscript query pretty much consistently. I have four more out to the agencies and am fully expecting them to be rejections as well. These four places have the basic 'if we don't respond in four to six weeks, then assume it's a no' response system. I'm on week four right now with them and have yet to get a response so I'm going to jump to the negative 'glass-half-full' assumption and plan on editing my Denied-O-Meter to 28 very soon.

Am I frustrated beyond belief and attempting not to burn the hard copy in a fit of pent up rage then burying it in the backyard under the giant pile of rabbit poop? Yes. Yes I am. Do I want to turn tail and run screaming into the night like a teenager in a cheesy horror movie from the big bad agent of denial? I think that's a fairly accurate description of how the inside of my brain is thinking. So yes. Am I giving up? No. Blast it all! I've failed over and over again on several things but I am not giving up on this venture. Not yet at least. I originally gave myself a year to query. That year mark is quickly approaching. So this weekend I discovered something. My story isn't good. Now don't go thinking I'm a pot of self pity boiling over into the fires of doom. I'm simply saying that as it seems that I've yet to even get the most mild form of interest in my book then I must assume that it isn't the countless agencies. It is me. Heck, not many people have read it. And half that have read it are biased and the other half have yet to finish reading it. And then there's the few that said they'd love to read it but never really showed interest past that point. That, my friends, is not a good sign. If I can't get an agent to read it then there's always self-publishing. My theory is that if I can't even get family and friends to read it for free, then what stranger would pay money freely to do so?

So it's time for a change. Josh and I had a nice long talk on the way home about my book and we both agree it's a great story. The problem isn't that the story is bad. It's the execution. It doesn't hold that certain unique spark that it needs in order to be marketable. Thanks to a writer husband who is well versed in books due to his avid reading obsession, I think he's helped me find the right road I need to travel to get it just where it needs to be. So that's my plan. As much as I don't want to admit my failure, it's time to buck up and start over. It's time for the thing that I never wanted to do. It's time for a rewrite.