And in the meantime...

...I'll be dealing with baby birds, missing socks, haunted hotels, the awkwardandsometimespainful middle-school years, and a variety of somewhat common hurdles over which small people must often leap.

I'll be back.

Strong like bull

Thanks to a brutal critique by one M.D., I now have enough fuel to power up the manuscript by about 10-15 pages. I'm on it.

...seven potato more

That's right, 7/7 rejections now. But considering the statistics, I shouldn't feel all that bad...especially since one of the seven actually read it a second time after suggesting I expand it a bit. And he loved the writing..enough to call it "beautiful" in three separate letters, in fact. (*blush*) It's just not "strong" enough for publication, he said.

So, back to the beginning.

Someone commented on a message board that they're impressed an agent even looked at it, that usually manuscripts of that length go straight to a publisher. "That length," meaning the awkward 'tweener stage of 1K-8K words.

But I want an agent, damn it! I can't handle the stress of dealing with the business side of things. And it would also be nice to have a fighting chance with the Big Houses.

I've got to go figure this out. Wish me luck...