The First Rejection

Well... it finally happened. I got my first rejection. There were a few reasons, but the one that stood out the most was the ... -sigh- word count.

I knew this might be a problem. Furthermore, I'm afraid the word count might mark me as an amateur. Suggestions were given for things I've already done and I know it's the word count that's making this impression. But what am I going to do?

For right now, I'm going to wait. There's no need to panic after the first rejection. I'm going to wait it out, let all the rest of the agents get back to me (or just not reply within six weeks) and, hopefully, see if there's any consensus on why they didn't want to represent me. If I get more mentions of the word count, I'll need to cut it down.

This is hard, too, because my betas specifically said they didn't like the cut down version. They wanted the story to be as long as it needed to be. Unfortunately, I don't have a choice in the matter. I think over the next few weeks I'm going to look over the manuscript and start marking entire scenes that can be removed. I'm going to need to remove about 20,000 words to get it down to a reasonable size, so tough decisions are going to have to be made. 

I won't remove the scenes just yet, but I need to start making an inventory. What needs to stay and what can be safely removed? I guess I'll need another round of betas. It's bummer. But I knew it was coming. That's just part of the process.

​Be Excellent to Each Other.