A Writer's Notebook, Day Seven-Hundred-And-Sixty-Seven

 As I have said many times on this blog, I am finding it difficult to get work published, and it is often quite upsetting.  It can make it difficult to feel that the work I am producing is good.  Any artist has trouble assessing the value of their work, and it is true the market is not the best place to get such judgements, but it is hard to dismiss the repeated rejections.  Tonight, however, I received a very needed blast of positivity from Jessica Sinsheimer and Julie Kingsley of the Manuscript Academy.  If you are not familiar, Manuscript Academy is an online resource for writers that aims to help prepare them for finding an agent.  On the website are a series of video courses and lectures, and options for setting up conferences with agents and editors to work on a manuscript or query letter, when preparing a submission.  Tonight they hosted a live event for members, focusing on questions surrounding the difficulties of submissions, and I was fortunate enough to have my question selected as one to be discussed.  Jessica is a literary agent, and Julie is a writer and teacher, and so they bring a wide variety of experience and expertise to the table.  As well, they really love the work they are doing with writers, and it is clear that they are extremely proud of the community that they have fostered, and wish the best for all the writers they encounter.

 My question was, more or less, the same one I have been attempting to answer for quite some time, and that is how to move past this rejection and get work accepted.  I did receive some interesting possibilities for this, but what really was most important was the fact that both Julie and Jessica were able to express, with clarity, an understanding of the difficulty in a real sense, and to point at various aspects of the current publishing climate that are working against me, in many regards.  Beyond this, Jessica was very clear in her support of my work.  It happens that I have known Jessica peripherally for many years, as she went to college with my brother.  As a result, she is somewhat familiar with my writing, even beyond the samples she has encountered through Manuscript Academy.  The affirmation she offered, and her belief that I need to persevere had a profound impact for me, even beyond any little tricks I might have learned.  So, I just wanted to extend a thanks to Manuscript Academy, to Julie Kingsley, and to Jessica Sinsheimer, and to suggest that any writers seeking a genuinely supportive and professionally knowledgeable support organization, you could do far worse than investigating the work being done by Manuscript Academy. 

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