A Healthy Dose Of Discouragement

Querytracker.net has a plethora of YA agents listed on their website. And by plethora, I mean 12 pages full of 447 listed agents. Talk about overwhelming. The past few days I've spent my time researching agents on querytracker, aaronline and their own websites. I don't think it really occurred to me how much work actually went into finding an agent. With so many options I figured my odds were pretty good that I would find an agent who loved my angel without memories finds demon who shares her memories and does everything he can to giver her her memories back while falling in love story. Easy right? Surely with the release of Dan Brown's Inferno, The Mortal Instuments Movie coming soon and books like the Hush, Hush series, I would find somewhere to fit in.

Perhaps not.

Over the weekend I have received 12 rejection letters. After doing research I found that several authors had to go through 76, even 113 rejections before they found that one agent and that one publisher. So I'm not doing that bad, but it plants that little thought in my head that says maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I am following the wrong dream. It's hard not knowing what the future holds. Fingers crossed I get some good news!

4:00 AM is a good time!

Oh my heck! I know I amazed you all with my stunning wit yesterday, but I had to post again because I had an interesting thought on my paper route today. Yes, the route where I drive down streets in the early morning for roughly 2 hrs, roll and throw 260 papers then come home hoping I can catch another hour of sleep before the monsters roll out of bed. Generally when the sun comes up, which happens to be around 5AM here in AZ during the summer, but I digress.
        Here was my though: What happens to the decisions we don't make? Where do they go?
        Brilliant, right?
        I mean, those thoughts exist somewhere. We thought them. But what happens if say, I choose cream cheese over strawberry jam on my bagel. What happens to the strawberry jam choice? And then it come to me. A new idea for a story. I have to say, I'm in love! I started jotting down outline and character ideas. No, I haven't stopped my last manuscript. I'm still cleaning up the angel, and all her mortal imperfections and the demon with all his cocky greatness, but this idea is tickling my brain and I have to write it down! I'll let you know more when I have it!

My first manuscript since I got courage

Courage is a strange thing. One day you think you have it, the next you're pretty sure it doesn't exist. I like to think I have an over abundant amount, but I'll let you in on a secret. I'm sort of a coward.
1. I hate rollercoasters. The last one I rode, I got off crying.
2. I'm terrified that my house will catch on fire. When I was a kid and my parents would go for walks at night I was terrified the house would catch on fire and I wouldn't be able to get my siblings out. True story.
3. I fear people being mad at me. Don't know why. It bothers me.
4. I'm terrified that I'll never accomplish my dream of becoming an author. The rejection doesn't bother me as much as the failure.
       A few months ago, while driving my 3AM paper route, I had an idea. An angel loves a demon, gets sent to earth as punishment to  live a mortal term, loses her memories, finds her demon love, gets some memories back, is betrayed by said love and nearly dies. Wow. That night I had to backtrack to throw papers because I hadn't been paying attention. Luckily I didn't miss anyone that day.
       The story rattled around in my brain for a while, pestering me in the wee morning hours. Finally I decided to write a bit of it down hoping that it would leave me alone. I'd given up my idea of being an author at that point. The idea didn't stop at a few lines. It flowed until I did it. Had a completed manuscript. Yay!
        The story is just a first draft, I have to get it smoothed out, but I have some Beta readers that are helping me out. Kerry Blair has been extremely helpful in editing my work, calming my fears and pushing me to try. Robison Wells was kind enough to answer some of my questions on Twitter about getting published.
        So here I am, finishing my novel, looking for an agent. Fingers crossed I find one!