One of the Herd: Post 1

Last weekend, I visited a small town in the mountains near my home (well, my Utah home). While I drove, I thought about the direction my life has taken, and how I stumbled upon this path in what felt like an abrupt turnabout.

Except, really, it wasn’t abrupt. I wrote for years before I finally sold a manuscript to a publisher. And I queried for years before I signed with my agent. And believe it or not, my husband applied for more jobs than we can count, for what felt like a ridiculously long time, before he was offered this new one.  

In all these cases, it was very much about having applications / queries / submissions in the right hands at the right time.

I know what you’re thinking. You’ve heard this advice a thousand times, and you’re trying, right? I know, because I’ve had this thought so. Many. Times. I promise, I’ve been there. It sounds impossible. But in both my case, and my husband’s, we decided to set a goal, and then do whatever we could in order to reach it.

How did we do it?

We got rejected. A LOT. So much I won’t even admit numbers. But they’re ridiculously high. It’s not embarrassing though. Wanna know why? Because for each of us, ONE thing hit the target. One submission. One query. (And yes, my submissions and queries were separate books going out at the same time, I broke a few rules—so shoot me.) One application.

One publisher. One agent. One fantastic job.

One.

I was thinking about all of these things, still driving, and then, I saw something cool, which I will tell you about in my Friday post. So you will definitely want to stop by again.

(Gah, don’t you just hate it when someone leaves a to be continued post? Sorry! I hate when my posts are too long. Also, given my crazy busy moving schedule, one subject = two posts= golden.)