I wish I could come back to this blog with good news but once again... rejection has hit me dead on like a truck in a nail salon. Is that a saying? It is now.
I've decided not to let myself get hung up on this, as I've spent so much time working on Beyond that to spend any more on it just grieving would be rather... disappointing. Besides, life moves on and I don't know how much more of it I have left. I honestly think that's what's really been pushing me forward, the fact that I really can't plan ahead too far for my future with certainty, but I also can't say that it'll all be over too soon. Just recently my grandmother had a health scare (she's fine now, thankfully), and it helped to remind me just how short the time we have on Earth is, and how long it can be. I've said this before but I'll say it again, that my life always felt like I was waiting for something to happen... and now I realize that whatever something I'm waiting for isn't coming. But that doesn't mean I can't make it myself. I'm going to do everything in my power to make my life worth living, and to ensure that each day I can wake up and look forward to the day being excited for whatever comes next, and look back on what I've done to be proud of myself.
In fact, the next book that I'm writing will be about that. I'll start soon- I don't know exactly when but... soon enough.
Anywho, Beyond will be going the way of self-publishing like What I Could've Been, after I do a final look-through and ask for any other pieces of advice. I think that the hardest part of this was just being unable to talk about my book to anyone else, and ask them how I could improve. I had so, so many different ideas I'd love to have bounced off of someone else who read through it but... only one person ever truly stuck through it and read to the end. She even said she liked it and pointed to the parts she liked, but considering how kind she always was to me I can't tell if it was just her nature or if those same feelings would be universal. I would've loved to see if The Paper Prince should speak or stay silent during his confrontation with Kipling, to know whether or not I should've created a new beginning from The Patchwork Soldier's point of View, etc. I can't tell if that's on me, or if it's because legitimately all of my friends hate to read/got busy after I asked them. Even saying that makes me question if they were just being nice to spare my feelings about losing interest, or if it was truly the case.
What was I talking about? Ah yes, future plans.
I'l be working on my next book whose Title I shall reveal sometime in the upcoming months, and continue to work on stuff behind the scenes. Even now, a part of me is hoping that an agent might ask for a full request (I have only 1 more outgoing query with an Agent I think I have a chance with) but I'm just going to force myself to keep calm and move on. Aside from that, I'm going to take an old story which I wrote right after I finished What I Could've Been, and see if I can whip it up into something that suits industry standards. The good news from being rejected from so many Literary Agents is that now when submitting new projects, I don't have to go through and do all of that research again. Another good thing is that practically nobody reads this blog, so all this stuff which likely sounds stupid will stay buried until I'm able to get my book out there again. Here's to hoping what I just said will age like milk though!
To be honest I'm still really bummed out... but like I said, each day is something which I can't take for granted. I want this, really truly and honestly. And I'm not going to sit and settle for defeat or only faded dreams of grandeur.
I'll be updating you all soon hopefully with a reformatted new children's book, a published Beyond (in one way or another), and a partially started new book.
Until then, I hope you have a brilliant new year, better than any of the ones that came before.
See you soon,
- Ud Din
