I don't know that I have a whole lot to say about this, other than the fact that I just want to say, I'm hurting right now. This process is painful, painful, painful.
I had an agent before. She got me into three PRH imprints, and even HCC. The concept was ready, the manuscript wasn't. I reworked it. Now I'm back out there.
And nothing.
I'm hurting because I wish I wasn't so attached to this book, but I am. I wish I didn't care, but I do.
I just have this feeling of dismal foreboding that a novel that straddles several genres--Appalachian as well as being Historical as well as being Fantasy--is going to need an agent that's a unicorn, who somehow loves all of that.
I'm hurting and confused because I got so far that last time, and feeling lost, in a way, in what I should expect this time.
I just don't know.
What an opportunity for spiritual discipline, however, I will say. That whole axiom about that which doesn't kill makes you stronger is too much of a simplification. Difficult times have always given me two options: sink or swim. Sink down into self-loathing and helplessness, or swim up in affirmation of being not helpless, grow more mature in areas of patience, acceptance, living in the moment, trusting God.
If little Paulina in my story can swim in the way she did, be as not helpless as she became, then so can I. My protagonist is my inner strength. I have to make more of a conscious effort nowadays to remember to let her take the wheel.
I affirm that this difficult moment of uncertainty and waiting will be an opportunity for me to grow. I will count it all joy...well, maybe not, but...I'll keep trying to try.
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