Number 13, huh? That’s a little ironic considering how this process ended.

Long story short, the agent is not interested. More accurately, she’s not interested anymore.

Her initial enthusiasm for the story and for the main character diminished somewhere during the second half of my manuscript — the one, I must note, she asked me to expand in length, but that’s ultimately neither here nor there, I suppose.

She didn’t explain exactly what cause her interest to waiver in the second half, so I have no idea how to fix it. Besides, I personally don’t think it needs “fixing.” My first attempt at expanding the story sucked hard and yeah, THAT needed fixing, but what I came up with on the second go-round I felt was a strong continuation of the plot and themes and character arcs.

I’ve asked her for further input so I might yet still salvage the project, but I’m not holding out hope. I sense that this project, at least with this agent, is dead.

So, step one was to spend a day moping. Done, but I’ll tell you, this one still hurts, a lot. Rejection is bad enough, but rejection when you’re close enough to success to taste it stings like a motherfucker.

Step two was to take the agent up on her offer to pitch something else. I mentioned Bostonia and Strongarm & Lightfoot – Adventurers for Hire, so we’ll see if either of those gets a nibble.

Step three: grab the latest edition of the writer’s market guide and start anew.