I'm betting on #1. It's just been that kind of week.

Susan, have I told you lately that you rooooooock? Cause ya do.

Thanks, P-C. I just wish assorted magazine editors and other freelancing gatekeepers thought so, and would pay me enough to keep me happily self-employed until such time as I've finished both my manuscripts. Then I need an editor to decide that I rock to the tune of a five figure advance and a publicity push.

Today's mail finally arrives. (And may I just say how annoying it is as a writer to have a mailman who rarely shows up before 4:00, and sometimes, particularly Mondays or after a holiday, is as late as 5:30?) I spot two Tyvek envelopes of the type I use for submissions and the return thereof. One of them has to be my contest entry coming back, right? Wrong. The return addresses are the two agencies where I had active submissions. Here's what they say:

Agency A:

Dear Author:

Many thanks for sending me part of your manuscript. While I found the material very interesting, I am going to pass. Although it wasn't right for me, I wish you the very best of luck in placing this elsewhere.

Form letter, methinks, though perhaps they have a different, more discouraging version for submissions without a single instance of correct grammar submitted in crayon on yellow legal paper.

Agency B:

Dear Susan:

Thank you for sending the partial of your manuscript entitled LUCY AND MR. WRIGHT.

Unfortunately, I am going to have to decline asking to see more of this manuscript. As you know, the genre of women's fiction is very competitive these days. Historical romance, in particular, is an especially crowded and difficult market. While I liked many elements of this project, ultimately, I just was not enthusiastic about it to pursue taking it on for representation.

Please keep in mind that this is a very subjective business, and others might feel differently. My client list has become quite full, so I'm being very particular when reviewing submissions. I am accepting new projects for representation on a very selective basis at this time. Therefore, I encourage you to continue submitting LUCY AND MR. WRIGHT elsewhere.

Thanks for thinking of our agency. I wish you the best with LUCY AND MR. WRIGHT and your future writing career.

OK. Granted, I'm doing such a massive rework on Lucy right now that it's just as well not to have it as an active submission. But still, it's hella discouraging, especially combined with the fact my big freelancing push of the past two weeks has so far availed me exactly nothing. Such business as I've had has all been resume work from people who already know about me (i.e. Buffistas and their nearest and dearest). Which is wonderful, and I enjoy the work, but this board would have to be at least 10 times bigger before I could make a living just from doing y'all's resumes.

Someone please give me one good reason I should keep doing this and not just keep Jack and Anna for my own personal fantasy and start sending out resumes Monday for another dreary bureaucratic job to pay the bills.

Because you're further along in the process than I so if you give up, I have to suck on a tailpipe? Ok, that might be a little All About Me.

Just got an email back from the contest coordinator. My entry is somewhere on the way back to me--the historicals were mailed "sometime last week".

Could this week BE any more discouraging?

Probably not without projectile vomiting, Susan, sorry.

Oh, and Annabel could provide that at any moment. Well, OK, projectile is rare, but she's all about the copious and slimy spit-up.

erika, Susan has an infant in the house. Don't tempt fate.

Susan, you can write. And you have completed a book, something most of us do a lot of talking and thinkin about. And you've started a second, and are reworking the first. You not only can write, you do write, and I suspect you have to write. I am so sorry for the rejections and the delays. I think the writer of that second letter must have been pretty impressed with your work, to take the time to write it. Encouragement to you.

Of course we'd Xpost about projectile vomiting. Help! I've been typecast in aisle two.

Reading between the lines of the second one, it's clear that the agent believes your book is worthwhile, but doesn't think it will sell in a bad market -- it's not you who is failing, the market isn't there at this time. Which may or may not be true.