I haven’t talked about my books or the writing process in a while. To be completely honest, I haven’t done a lot of writing for a few weeks now. And to be really really honest, I’ve been feeling kind of defeated.

I’ve STILL been trying to land an agent, something I’ve been working and stressing about for about 10 months already. I’ve sent off 60 different query letters to 60 different agents. I never heard anything back from close to half of them, and the other half all turned it down. I haven’t even been able to get ONE to ask for more chapters. It really starts to eat away at your confidence after a while, and after getting another rejection this week, I was ready to call it quits. 

I even told Dan I was just going to accept that I wasn’t any good and it probably just wasn’t in the cards for me. He of course, being the best human alive, told me to just step back from it for a while until I got my confidence back. He told me I don’t need an agent to be a writer, but if I’m not feeling it in the moment to take a break until I’m ready to tackle it again. 

So that is what I decided to do. A break sounded like just what I needed. Until something else happened this week! 

Before Christmas I had tried to reach out to Amy Daws on Facebook messenger. If you don’t know who that is, she’s a romance author who’s written a couple dozen books and one of her book series – called Wait With Me – is being turned into a movie. I’ve read a few of her books and they’re really good – I highly recommend! But I didn’t find out until a month or two ago that Amy was from Sioux Falls, SD. How cool is that?? I was pretty pumped that someone from our small state was seeing so much success and I wanted to reach out and pick her brain a little bit. 

I had also given up hope that she would ever respond to my message, but this week she did!!! She told me she didn’t have an agent either and self-published just like I did. She gave me a lot of great tips and it filled my cup of confidence back to the top. If she can do it, who’s to say I can’t?? 

Isn’t it funny how things like that happen when you seem to need it most? I was ready to throw in the towel a few days ago and now I feel ready to go again and take on the world. 

If you’re feeling defeated like I was, it’s okay to take a break for a while. If it’s something you really love and are passionate about, it’ll come back to you. 

I’m ready to go get back to work. Who’s with me!? 

Until next time! 🙂 

Megan Reiffenberger