This morning, I woke up wondering why I write.
It's been six months since I've sent out my query materials to agents. It's been six months since I received a rash of rejections from said agents. I have learned some about how to improve my writing since then. I haven't, however, gotten over the dejection I feel when I get rejections, dejection I've written about in these pages and that you've read.
If I send queries again, I will invariably get rejected.
If I do not send queries, I'll never get published.
I'm going to have a busy Christmas Break, between tweaking my classes for Spring (I have a day job as a professor in Behavioral Sciences), writing on my book that suddenly became two books, and editing something well to offer up to the agents. I wish I could afford to pay a real editor, but we can't right now, so I have to limp along and hope my own skills are up to it. I worry that this puts me at a disadvantage.
I'm apprehensive. But I need to have an external reason to write, because writing takes up a lot of my time, and I would like it to pay off in some way -- earning money from writing is good, but being heard and being read is a bigger payoff. I don't want to think writing is just a time-consuming hobby that I do all for myself while clutter still inundates my office. I want to think the world needs my novels, and that an agent would recognize this.
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