Yes!!! I’ve only sent out a handful of submissions to literary agents, and I already have my first rejection!!! How cool is that!?!?!? Seriously!!! That is AWESOME!!!
No, I’m not completely insane. I am really excited that I got my first rejection. It means that I am one step closer to success. It means that someone actually read my submission, even if only briefly. Unlike some other types of selling, like on the phone, sending literary submissions feels completely devoid of human contact. You write it. You agonize over it. You rewrite it. You hit the send button. You hop up and down because you finally did it. Then you wonder.
Would I have preferred to have a different response? Well, of course, I would have, but in this game, you simply must keep playing. How many rejections do I expect to get? Many. The more queries and submissions that I make, the more rejections that I will get. Ultimately and most importantly, each query and submission that I send gets me closer to getting positive responses.
