Sometimes the hands of the Universe Clock line up.
Monday was not that day. On Monday I received my very first rejection letter. Er … rejection e-mail.
I had been expecting it. I’ve sent out over a half-dozen queries — many of them blind — and some of them were getting ripe, past the six week expected reply time. The rejection was not bad. She said she was not connecting with the story in a way she needed to to effectively represent it, but looked forward to seeing it in print. Which is perfectly understandable; no book is everybody’s cup of tea. This was an agent who had requested a query during #PitMad, so the swift turn-around was nice. And I am not the slightest bit discouraged. I’ve now joined a new tier of writers and I feel less like a rookie.
The next day, Tuesday, was when the cosmos aligned — briefly but with an audible “Bong!” I felt all the way down to my toes.
The microwave at my office died, leaving my frozen lunch still frozen. So I grabbed my keys and my iPhone and headed for my car to pick something up. As I walked I glanced at my phone and saw a notification that I had won that eBay bid for the 4-season box set of Downton Abbey for $30 (those retail for $100) I smiled, because my wife and daughter and I have decided to re-watch the entire show from episode one, one episode per Sunday, as during the season just ended. We have a ritual, complete with honey-rich tea, served from a collectable Downton Abbey teapot in Downton Abbey mugs. We figure if we start now we’ll be ready for season six just when it makes its way to the States. But $100 is quite a lot of money for a TV show. $30 is much better.
A moment later my phone rang and it was a call I’d been anticipating for weeks — nothing that would excite or interest you (life insurance), but the call meant that after months of forms and extensions and records retrievals and signatures and doctors visits, we were good to go. My smile ratcheted up another notch.
Then I saw the e-mail from #WriterPitch. An agent had read my pitch and was requesting that I send her a query and chapters. This is an agent who is actively seeking to build her clientele, and loves children’s books. The hands of the universe clock clicked into alignment.
The “Bong!” I felt down to my toes? By this time I was sitting in my car with the engine running, and I turned on my iTunes Radio. And this song, which I had never heard before, blasted out of my speakers like a congratulations from Bumblebee (my imaginary transformer car who communicates via audio clips).
If this doesn’t make you want to dance, stop what you’re doing and call 911. You’re pulse has stopped.
Am I Doing This Right? 
Good job!! I’m so excited to hear how it goes!! 🙂
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You lucky dog! Actually that’s a play on words as I’ve completed a manuscript on a dog rescue and have queried about 80 or so agents. I’ve gotten nibbles but no bites. The best(or worst) experience: Sent a query @4:00p. m. on a Friday. Got an email 15 minutes later from the agent who said she was leaving her office and would contact me Monday. Monday came and went. I told myself maybe she meant in two Mondays. The second Monday came and went. I waited a few weeks and sent her a humorous(at least I thought so) email about how I was spending all day by my phone and computer waiting to hear from her. Still no response. Then I thought possibly something very bad had happened to her. I looked her up on Twitter to find she was alive and well and had been tweeting since that very Monday she’d promised to contact me.
I wish you much better luck than I’ve had.
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