of the force…

What? I couldn’t resist.

Resistance is futile, you know. Okay, fine, enough geek humor.

At least the dark side has cookies, or so I tell myself.

I work as an editor for a small press, have for a while now, and I honestly felt like my best skills (with romance in general) weren’t utilized. So I asked for more romance subs.

Yay! I get some… Yay! I get to read the submission packages and decide… woah, I get to write the acceptance/rejection letters.

Whups.

I didn’t think about that.

And I learned how bloody painful it is to reject a book someone has slaved over. 

I’m human (most days) and negative emotions are remembered more strongly than positive.

I have also enjoyed the experience of the giddy sense of OMG I LOVE THIS SUB I NEED THE REST OF IT RIGHT NOW, as well as that nasty, heart-stabbing pain of rejecting others.

I can say, having received a lot of rejections, that I at least made it a helpful one, listing my whys.

I can also see the reasoning behind why so many agents don’t bother to even use form emails, when inundated with subs, I can see how it would be overwhelming.

It doesn’t change my stance on querying future titles that I write, not sure anything can.

But I understand better now. 

I don’t know that I’ll ever be the type to not send some sort of feedback, I know too well the sense of questioning that comes with each rejection.

The people at THP are all good people, so I imagine we’ll be around for a while. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that I’ll get to the point where I’m inundated with subs and have to create a form email response.

For now though, I don’t have to do that, and I’m grateful for it. As painful as it is to write the rejections, it’s still more painful to receive them.