Doomsday

Dear Fabio-seeking fans,

The Monday after New Year's is always such a bummer - back to the grind, not a holiday nor a reprieve from the cold in sight - and though we always hope that this new year will be different, it never fails to feel like a nice, hard slap in the face.  If my dream agent's rejection this morning is any indication, 2011 is going to be one hell of a year for me.

I write as one of the many thousands of hopeful romance junkies trying to get their first romance novel published.  Whether you have written a daring contemporary, a sinister paranormal, a sweet inspirational, or a torrid historical, you have probably been nursing an abnormally voracious reading habit for some time and, after having read all the smut and trash that's out there, figured that hey, you can write a romance - one that is five times more daring or torrid than the contemporary or historical you just read.  And so your romance novel - your pride and joy, your baby, your blood, sweat, and tears, your reason for living - is born.

After the messy, complicated process of novel-birthing is through, you draft a query letter and humbly email it to 324 agents in the hope that they, too, will recognize that your romance is indeed five times more sinister than the last paranormal they read.  You wait, you hope, you pray, all the while fantasizing about the yacht you're going to buy with your seven-figure advance and what color kilt Fabio is going to be wearing on the cover of your bestseller.

And then comes the first rejection.  Something along the lines of: "Dear Miss Peterson: I just didn't fall in love with the writing here."  You are crushed and yet are surprised by the prick of tears as you read the REJECT email over and over.  Wait a second, you think - I am a twenty-something (or thirty- or forty or hell, even eighty-something) man/woman with a well established career in (said profession).  How can one agent's rejection make me sob like a five year old who fell off the monkey bars?

So you keep the faith.  That is, until 323 more REJECTS arrive in your inbox.  Some hurt more than others, and although you console yourself with wise words from Stephen King and Stephanie Meyer (yes, even she was rejected by several agents!), you start to think - well, what was I thinking?  Perhaps my inspirational romance really isn't so sweet.  Maybe I'm not such a great writer after all.  I should probably just schlep back to the 9 to 5 job I so desperately hate because I am never, ever going to see my name in literary lights.

Well, fellow Fabio-lovers, I am right there in that sinking boat with you.  And that's why I decided to write this blog - keeping the faith on your own is an arduous, but not totally impossible, task, and I figure a little commiseration might help.  As the wise Nora Roberts once said, "If you don't ask, the answer is always no.  If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place."  I write in the small tiny hope that we all keep asking, querying, writing, even if the answer is inevitably no.

It only takes one yes from one agent to jump start your career as a romance novelist.  One yes to make all your Fabio dreams come true.  But the answer, of course, begs the question.  So ask away!