In my theater and film days, we talked about how you need 100 auditions to get one job. And the role isn’t the point: auditions are your chance to act and you should get joy from those opportunities because heaven knows that the right place right time thing isn’t in your control. The audition is the gift and getting a job is just a bonus.

So now I’m supposed to remember that writing is my job and that the chance to listen to the voices in my head is a gift. That I don’t write just to get published, and that I have to keep working while the Universe takes care of the right place right time stuff. I may sell novel number two before anyone wants the one I’m sending around right now.

Got five more rejections this week, which means I’m at 15. A mere drop in the Universal bucket, as folder-teeming-full-of-rejections measures go. Just 85 more before someone picks up the book, right? I appreciate the “no”s that come with notes, and the handwritten notes that say “I just have too much work right now but just keep trying because this will find a home.” I don’t appreciate the form letters as much, but I understand and don’t hold grudges. Spouse is enraged by the few who return my own letter with just a handwritten sentence on it, but I appreciate the paper savings. Yet I have to say, I really resent the one flyer I got, with my name penned onto a line that might as well have been designated “poor sucker”, that extolled the virtues of paying $700 for a conference so I could have an audition with all the agents getting paid to listen to me.

That’s why I wrote a killer query, agent people. Take me on or don’t, but don’t send me a flyer asking me to pay money for your time.

Makes me appreciate the two agents who are willingly reading my first 50 pages. Really appreciate them. Because they’re doing their job. May they find the right books for them, whether or not it’s mine. They deserve the best because they’re giving their best.

Me, too.