After a big full manuscript rejection, I decided to resubmit Missing Girls and Lost Boys a full fifteen months after its first wave of submissions. It had been severely revised since 2023, and I was confident to put it back out there. I felt the only way to move on from rejection was to move forward, and by the end of the week, I tentatively researched and emailed a list of agents. And while going through this mourning process of 'Why, oh why, was my book was rejected?' I was struggling to sleep. I picked through the characters, their arc, the world building, and anything else, both in waking and while laid in bed at night. And the most beautiful but annoying thing happened. I realised my opening wasn’t strong. In a world of submissions where those first few pages are the hook, I delved into setting the scene before the character. And with an additional five-hundred words, I completely turned that around. What’s wrong with this? I had emailed almost the entire agent list and felt this initial submission was now below par. I was able to retract and resubmit on Query tracker, but for the remainder I’ve had to write it off as a badly timed epiphany. I busied myself with working through the manuscript with an improved mindset, but whatever happens, happens. Dystopian YA is a hard sell right now, and I hope to find a champion for my story.
What also adds to the stress of throwing myself into the Literary Agent Submission trenches? Moving house. We had no plans to do so, but within a week we looked at a house, sold ours and put an offer in. I can only laugh as madness prevails. One out of five stars. Wouldn't recommend. Send help.
