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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Rejection and Revenge

If you read the inside flap of my latest release, Kismet's Revenge, you'd see the book is dedicated to Bertrice Small with the caveat that the book wouldn't exist without her. Well, it's true. In a weird way.

Allow me to 'splain. My first attempt at writing a full-length historical novel, in its initial inception, was more than 800 pages long and packed with details totally unnecessary to the story. What did I know? I was completely new to the writing business, raw and totally on my own. Undaunted (or ignorant--take your pick), I sent a query off to an agent on a Monday morning. The agent in question had a direct link to my idol, Bertrice Small. By Thursday I had my first rejection: a postcard that gave me the usual apology for the impersonal reply but he had too many manuscripts and not enough time to send a personal rejection, yet after careful consideration, the story was not for him. And boy was I mad! Not that he rejected me. More that I knew there was no way that if he had too many manuscripts on his desk he could have read my 800 page tome and sent me a rejection postcard within four days. (I told you; I was ignorant.)

The good thing about anger (at least for me) is that it energizes me. Makes me want to prove someone wrong. I started doing research, found critique partners, found Romance Writers of America, and learned.

I still believed in my story, but knew it needed tremendous work if I ever wanted to see it in print. But with my resentment at that agent still bubbling, I decided to write a sequel to my 800 page story. Yes, even after 800 pages, I still had plenty of story to write. Since this was a story for revenge, I titled this new work, Kismet's Revenge.

And it's available now at The Wild Rose Press. So there you have it. What's that old saying? "Living well Getting the book published is the best revenge."

8 comments:

Tina Donahue said...

My first novel ever was nearly a thousand pages, so I know what you mean, Katherine. :)

Congrats on your release and your continuing career!

Paris said...

There's something special about that first story! Congratulations on the new release and looking forward to more of your stories:-)

Katalina Leon said...

I too have an unpublished 900+ historical tome that wanders into three very different stories... what was I thinking? lol
I'll always remember that first burst of excitement and how good it felt to sit down for the first time to seriously write and have a big story come forward. I was in heaven everyday I worked on that tome!
Congratulations Katherine on this very sweet bit of revenge.
XXOO Kat

April Ash said...

My first book was rejected...seems I had a small amount of dialogue and "told" the rest of the story! Again, newbie, what did I know?
We sure learn from our first books!
I still have that book and think, "Someday...".
Any sort of "revenge" can be a great thing!
Marianne/April

Linda Kage said...

Congrats on your sweet revenge!! My first story was probably one of the longest I ever wrote.

Sandy said...

My first story was for Silhouette Romance and it 200 pages single spaced. lol

I rewrote that for years and still didn't sell it. I threw it away a couple of years ago. lol I do have some I'm going to dig out and revamp.

Gina Ardito aka Katherine Brandon said...

I'm a firm believer in recycling. LOL! I hope you'll all find your own revenge some day.

jean hart stewart said...

All very familiar. Remionds me I have a couple of early books I should rewrite. I've caninabilized some of them though....Jean

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