I will outwork the ones that are obsessed with the perfect comma placement, I’ll outwork the ones that have re-written their first chapter until it’s a glob of boring gray matter, I’ll outwork the ones that cling to the rules so tight their povs are suffocated. I’ll slash and hack the book to pieces and keep what’s good, a pile a of glittering bones waiting to be built up again! I’ll drink more coffee and delete more exclamation marks.

The same happened to me – I sent my MS to a well known feminist publisher in London long before it closed down. It was a crime story set in the area where I lived. They liked it very much but were undecided, so undecided that they kept it for 9 months!! I would write, call to find out what’s happening and they’d give me the same old spiel about ‘not too sure but they’re still thinking about it. In the end I got fed up and asked them to return the MS. I waited a few months for its return, and when it did, I was shocked to see the return address was somewhere in Australia. So in a way, the process of publishing my story, or any story, has put me off. But I’m looking to do a memoir (as I notice my fiction is always based on my experiences) so I hope that once it’s finished I have the nerve to see it right through to the end.

Me, too! I’d put it away, did send it out, and had several rejections. One agency kept it and kept it… I finally wrote and said, can I determine if I should 86 this? They wrote back: ‘OH, sorry, we are now non-fiction! It’s been on a shelf. Gathering dust. Apparently, an editor was interested. We don’t know who, but… here’s your MS back.’ ERRRRGGGGHHHH. It was then out of technological date. But I kept it til my husband accidentally tossed it…

I still have the triology research tho.

Maybe when I am done with my 2nd and 3rd WIP…

-c

Thanks Claire for your response. I have stuff written twenty years ago. and I think, not bad. I think it’s also to do with having the confidence to put it out there for people to read. But yeah, I will keep on. Take care.

I’ve been there, and more than a few insults slung my way. I sighed, put everything away, yet no matter how hard I tried, that tug to write (more like an obsessive John Deere tractor pulling me along) brought me back. So, to all those naysayers, whether you write to publish or to please yourself, your best defense is to write. And read. Learn the craft, yes–in fact, keep at it, read the type of books/authors that you want in your genre, and voice you gravitate toward. But don’t give up. Even if you are writing for yourself. There’s nothing like looking back twenty years and saying … if only. Someone told Zane Grey to give up. Here’s an article for your flagging spirits: http://www.litrejections.com/best-sellers-initially-rejected/