My first rejection letter came in the mail today. Actually, it is a card that begins “Dear Author.” It was not my first choice of agencies, and I have braced myself for many letters like this, but it still is a little disappointing to get a rejection. Dorothy said that this makes me a real author, and she’s right–collecting rejection slips is a rite of passage for any author. When my MS finds the right agent and the right publisher, the rejections will not mean anything.
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The Hobgoblin of Little Minds 
I’m about to start collecting rejection slips too! I’ll race you to the first twenty! I figure it’s all a silly game along the lines of selling a house. You only need one person to come along and love the house, but you have to get through all those other viewings first by people who really weren’t looking for your kind of house in the first place. I don’t mind the polite rejections (well, let’s face it, who likes ANY kind of rejection) but it’s the ones that say ‘never darken our door again’ or just ‘you are rubbish’ that get me down. At least you could plan the sequel to your novel in which terrible fates befall agents as a fun way of sublimation!
Save them. We’ll all have a good chuckle over them one day when we’re toasting the advent of the publication of your tenth book. You have awesome talent, so don’t despair!
Sorry to hear about that. I got my own share of “Dear faculty applicant” – a dozen to be exact. One has to hope that the next one is going to be the magic one.
It is good that this wasn’t from your preferred agency. Best wishes for the pending responses.
Hello Hobgoblin, you will be getting an acceptance letter soon, I know it! Put this aside and move on…but sometimes rejection makes us stronger, right?