Not counting any more. In fact, I'm back in the dating game, so to speak. I hate the dating game. You have to gear up for the "big sale" only the sale can last upwards of eight tiring months of waiting for the big fish to bite. In this case, they bit me in the ass. I know the picture doesn't make much sense to the rant, but it's one of mine and I thought I'd share.
It's not that the whole rejection letter was bad, it was actually quite positive and complimentary, but to say it was a positive rejection letter is a really bad oxymoron. They said their reviewers gave it an "excellent" rating, and that I really got into the minds of what it was like to be a missionary. Their only criticism was my ending which didn't end the way they had hoped. I don't know what they were expecting, they are missionaries after all, it's not like they can have a kegger or something. I talked to my editor about it and she said I shouldn't change it unless it was something I was going to change in the first place, which I wasn't. It ended where it wanted to end, how can I change that? Everyone had learned the lesson they were supposed to learn and had applied it while they were there...so my question is, where do you take story from there.
I'm now in the process of trying to pick another publisher to send it to. I have the deadline for it to be in the mail of May 1, 2007. I'm going to give them about six months to consider it before I send it out to the next one and then just make it a habit of sending it out every six months. I don't want to have to wait for eight months to find out that they aren't going to take it. I could have had it on the desk of another publishing house for two moths had I initiated this policy before. I guess you live and learn. I think I've narrowed it down to a publisher that published a fictional story about the MTC, at least I think it's fictional. Maybe they'll be interested in adding to their missionary library....we'll see. Time will tell.
