It was inevitable.  The first rejection.  Before it happened I thought, maybe I’ll celebrate it.  HA!  It has bothered me worse than I thought it would.  It was a good rejection – and I suppose that’s some consolation.  The agent sent this to my editor:

“There was a LOT I liked about this.  Everhart is a wonderful writer, and Dixie is a great character.  In the end, though, I think the comparisons make this really hard – she’s not Harper Lee and she’s not Dorothy Allison (author of BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA) – who is?  But the territory is the same and she’d have to be doing something really new for this to work – at least for me.  Yet I have a feeling that if you find the right agent – someone who sees this as you do, you could do very well by it.”

I keep reading it over and over trying to dissect it so it doesn’t make those comparisons…because when comparisons are made, you WANT them to say “she’s another Harper Lee, or another Dorothy Allison.” 

My editor said she “forbids” me to be disheartened.  Which made me smile.  So there.  I smiled.  And now, I’ll just move on, albeit feeling rejected. I’ve read about the veterans who’ve seen rejections many times over, and they’ve said that you get used to it, you toss it in the drawer or file it away and forget about it.  I wonder how long it takes to get used to it?  Till the next agent shows interest I imagine.  And then it begins all over again, the hope and anxiety, the waiting…and then…