I have been subbing the novel formerly known as Oneiromancer since 2017. Six years. That's a long time, and a lot of rejections along the way.
I say this as I enter another round of submissions with a newly retooled version (though, frankly, not much has changed since the last edit; the big changes happened a few years ago when I cut a character and had to thusly rewrite the ending) with a new name. It's now not-so-formally known as Somnia, though I reserve the right to change this too. As ever, suggestions are welcome.
Six years, still with nothing to show for it. Where did I go wrong? Or did I go wrong at all?
Of course, my first error was submitting too soon. This is, perhaps, inevitable. I am as human as the next alien person and I hardly rushed the process; I had beta-feedback – which I acted upon – and polished my little manuscript up to the best of my ability. It's hard to criticise myself for that.
Still, too soon is too soon. My first batch of rejections may have been because of that.
Or maybe not, because, as all writers know, the submissions process is cruel and unfair. You send in a tiny sample of your work and it's rejected on that basis. Thus we're encouraged to polish and polish and polish those first three chapters/10 pages/10k words/whatever. But no matter how polished they are – and sparkle they might – they are but a tiny fraction of the novel, and the more complex the plot the harder it is to demonstrate your abilities in those first few pages.
That's before we get on to agents/publishers who do the old 'if you don't hear from us, assume rejection' shtick, which I - and I think most writers - hate with a passion. Can't you even send out a generic rejection?
Whatever the case, I am still trying to ship this benighted novel. Sensible advice might be to give up and move on to something new. There are only two things stopping me from doing that: first, I have written two sequels to that, and they're not finished – by which I mean sufficiently polished – and I'm damned if I'm going to give up on the best part of a decade's work for nothing. Second, I bloomin' well believe in this story. It's good. So there.
So I'm going back into the realms of agents' manuscript wishlists, which takes time. And I'm customising my cover letters, which takes time. And I'm lamenting the US-centricness of lists – nothing against the US, of course, and it doesn't stop me from approaching American agents, but my preference would be to work with someone I could meet.
I guess what I'm really wondering is if I can resubmit to previously-approached agents. They say ('they' being people who know more than me) that it's one and done, unless the manuscript is substantially changed. Well I simply don't know how to reckon this. Nor do I know if one should address the fact that it's a resub in the submissions letter.
In summary, I don't know what I'm doing.
But giving up is not on the table – not today, at least. I will give this novel one last big push whilst I continue the neverending edit of Our Kind of Bastard whilst I continue with the commercial editing.
If nothing comes of this then it's time to self-publish.
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