Missing Out on a Bestseller

I regret walking away from writing for two years. I let a rejection convince me I didn’t have what it took. Thankfully, I dusted myself off, it just took longer than I would have liked.

I’ve learned to take what I can from a rejection, apply it, and then move on. Like you said, we need to focus on moving forward.

I try not to regret. I believe everything that happens to us is important in shaping who we are and if we’re open to learning, these things make us better people.

That said, I do sometimes wish I’d found my own writing voice sooner, rather than trying to model other authors whose work I love.

My favorite line in this post is: “…trust that everything is working out as it should so I don’t need to waste energy regretting a lost opportunity.”

To me this is true for so much more than writing and publishing. It is a spiritual discipline and truth. As a Christian I know that God works everything for my good – IN HIS TIME. If I am praying for his hand to be at work in everything then I have to trust that he sees the big picture and knows what I need. I’m trying to learn to look for his purpose in disappointments and those things that seem to be set-backs because I know it’s there. Sometimes it’s a trust building exercise. I’m not all that great about that yet. Working on it. Thank you for the reminder.

And congratulations again! I am honored to read the blog of the Agent of the Year!!

I have a long list of agents who have missed out on a best seller..LOL

I regret not finishing my first attempt at a novel years ago. I hold a teensy bit of regret in waiting a couple of weeks to start my blog rather than starting it alongside the first novel. It would’ve been nice to capture the first two weeks, but it’s really not worth getting that worked up about. Otherwise, no. I’m a bit too new to have done much to regret yet. Don’t ask me about my 15-year day job, now….

Not yet. Still praying/waiting for an agent, the right agent with the right fit. I believe it will happen, until then I am being faithful to continue planting seeds.

Hey, everyone has an “off” day…perhaps the most famous “pass”

Decca Records: “guitar groups are on the way out”

As an editor, I have a mental file of “the ones that got away”–the ones that I wanted to acquire but didn’t get, either because the author chose a different publisher or I couldn’t get my superiors to see the potential.

Bummers, but I feel a teeny bit of pride in at least having recognized the potential, even if I didn’t get to edit the project. I can only think of one book that even I didn’t see the potential in that has gone on to sell really well, and in that case, the author’s platform substantially improved between proposal and publication.

Thank you for the honest and encouraging post. I regret at times that I didn’t start earlier to learn the craft and then educate myself about the publishing industry. On the long hard road toward publication, I’ve acquired a thicker skin and more patience. So I try to think about this positive reward and remind myself that my Heavenly Father knows the desires of my heart. I’ve turned it all over to Him including getting published with a novel. Sherri’s comments above express mine completely.

Like a few all ready said, I regret the time I wasted with doubt, fear and anxiety– the boogeymen. But I came up with a motto a long time ago: Enjoy the good, learn from the bad and regret nothing. So, I try to stay in that kind of mindset.

I cannonballed into the publishing pool and got the same response one always does for those sort of behaviors. Having been accepted by the first company I ever sent a manuscript out to, I was basking in accolades like tanning oil at the beach when the contract came in the mail. It said my book would be published in approximately eight months. Eight months? Well that was entirely unacceptable (I was young). For heaven sake, it wasn’t even that long of a book! So, if they couldn’t do better than that, there were plenty of other people on my list that hadn’t even seen it, yet. These people were holding up my destiny, and I told them so.

In a letter that I mailed with so much confidence I promptly went grocery shopping after I put the flag up on my mailbox (it was before Internet). However, halfway between the frozen peas and the spinach, I had a sudden revelation. Sort of a picture of what God looked like. At that moment, he looked like my dad when I had done something really bad. I gasped, dropped the vegetables, and tore out of the store so fast my three pre-schoolers in the shopping cart whooped in delight at the wild ride. One squealed, “We went shopping and we didn’t even buy groceries!” and broke off into peals of laughter. I think I might have broken some traffic laws driving home, but they found that entertaining, too.

I won’t go into what happened when I turned into our street and saw all the flags along the block were down. The memory still gives me a sinking feeling to this day, because I NEVER got an opportunity like that, again. Even though I “sought it with tears,” as the saying goes. Worked my tail off, after that, too. Perfected my craft, learned the business, and sincerely cultivated so many industry relationships, I felt like one of the best-known unknown writers in the business. I can’t say how many times I was humbled by how gracious, helpful, and encouraging everyone was to me. But it was almost twenty years before I got another book contract in the mail.

I regret that I didn’t do enough learning and cultivating, first. (Matthew 13:5,6)

No regrets yet. I find everything to be a learning experience. Great post!

Congrats again on winning Agent of the Year award. Doesn’t surprise me.

Regrets, I’ve had a few:

Started my fiction writing career too late.

Wrote a novel before I learned the craft.

Didn’t engage with other writers.

As others have said, it’s best to look forward, not back.

I started my writing career as a 6-year-old, “publishing” such amazing classics as “How to Make Mud Pie” and “The Monster Family.” Truly brilliant works of art, they were. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and each piece was better than the one before it. Ha.

Eventually, along came college, and instead of continuing my education in creative writing, I chose journalism (so I could “get a job afterward,” as my dad said). While I do not regret my choice of degree–it helped me to hone and tighten my writing skills even more than another degree might have–I do regret that, after high school, I stopped writing creatively. It was so easy to tell myself that, while I loved writing, getting published and making a career as an author would be too difficult, that there would be too much competition to possibly succeed.

So I quit.

Thank goodness I took a fiction writing course during my graduate English coursework. It reminded me of this first love for creative writing. Because of it, I’m currently writing my first novel and soaking up the knowledge of those in the field.

I just wish I hadn’t lost that love to begin with. But now that I have it back, I’ll never forsake it again!

When I was way too young, I begged God for a husband. “I’m lonely. I want a partner.”
God seemed to say, “Not yet. The time isn’t right.”
“Why not?” I assured Him that I was quite the mature nineteen-year-old, and ready for marriage. I know. Funny. He didn’t laugh. He seemed to say, “Yes, but did you ever stop to think that he isn’t ready yet?”
He became ready not too long after and we will have been married twenty-five years this December. Everything lined up perfectly and continues to do so.
I find it the same for writing. Why would it be different for agents and publishers? When everything else is lining up perfectly, why regret what didn’t?

I don’t feel it’s possible to have regret. Everything is learning experience and we must take from it what we can. I don’t want to be on my deathbed saying “what if?” I want to be on my deathbed saying “Man, that was fun!”

Most editors and agents have passed on books that went on to success (if not bestseller lists), and I think we all feel regret to a certain extent, maybe a little professional jealousy, yet we can’t lose any sleep over it. Most of us realize that if we didn’t recognize the “X” factor that makes a book a bestseller, we may not have been the best agent for it. The truth is, many bestsellers are freakish surprises, even to the publisher. So we cut ourselves slack knowing that most likely, we weren’t the only ones who rejected it, and just because we didn’t have that gut feeling about it doesn’t mean we can’t still recognize good books.