I knew getting into print wasn’t going to be easy. I watched my mum struggling to get her writing published and so I know how difficult it is. But it was still quite a blow to receive my first rejection from an agent even if it was phrased in a positive way:
Dear Ms. Hearle,
Many thanks for sending me your manuscript.
I thought that there was much to admire here, in particular your prose style, but I’m afraid I don’t look after any books in this sort of genre and as such I do not feel that I would be the right agent for you, but please do not give up.
With best wishes and good luck in your future endeavours….
Being my first, I found it hard to tell if this was a standard rejection or not, but I’m learning to read the positives within the negatives; in so doing, I am choosing to take solace in the fact that he ‘admired’ my ‘prose style’ and am certainly not going to give up just yet. In fact I’m half way through my manuscript and will persevere in my pursuit of representation despite having already received a second, less positive rejection.
People keep reminding me about J K Rowling’s struggle to find belief in Harry Potter; whilst I don’t live under any illusions of harbouring a similarly global phenomenon on my hard drive, such thoughts do help to keep those flames of hope burning. I will strive to write more powerful, poignant and popular prose.
I’ve also suffered rejection with Bow; we didn’t make it onto the short list for the 2* team. The reason? Our show jumping hasn’t been consistent enough. Pragmatically I saw it coming; we haven’t had the greatest season, Bow isn’t the most careful jumper in the world and there are a lot of very good horses on the list. What's more important is that he's making a good recovery from his mystery virus. And whilst I was obviously disappointed, I’m not going to let it ruin next season for us; if anything it’s made me more determined.
We’ve nothing to lose and everything to prove. I learnt a lot from my mistakes last year and will use that learning curve to my advantage. Now that I’m riding more horses, more often, I know that I am riding a whole lot better. Whilst I would have loved to represent my country, I now have the freedom to choose where I compete and who knows, without the added pressure, how far we’ll go.
Tomorrow is after all, a New Year; for me it's also a new decade. I’m turning my negatives from 2010 into positives for 2011. My aim? To make it a good one.
