rejection

The title says it all really - I got a rejection letter in the post from M&B today. I knew it (well, a letter) was coming because I gave in to temptation yesterday and emailed the office to ask for an update on my ms since I sent it into them in September 2006 and got a reply saying a letter had been written the day before.

As rejections go, I guess it was one of the "good" ones because the editor said I have a lively contemporary voice and then went on to explain what didn't work about my ms for her. She also mentioned my past submissions and told me what I should focus on in my writing, and she also gave me a comps slip to send in with my next submission.

I'm not sure that there's going to be another submission. I feel like I'm back at a crossroads that I know I've been at before. I started submitting to M&B in June 2003. The same editor has read all of my submissions and every time she's sent me a rejection letter she's also sent me a comps slip asking me to send her something else.

My M&B history has gone like this:

June 2003 - sent in The Wrong Brother which got a revisions request on the partial followed by a full request but was eventually rejected in October 2003. I know, it all happened very fast! I still love this story and haven't given up on it just yet.

December 2003 - sent in Sea of Dreams which was rejected in March 2004.

March 2004 - sent in The Italian's City Bride which got a revisions request on the partial but was then rejected in October 2004. I definitely still love this one!

December 2004 - M&B asked to see The Wrong Brother again because I mentioned I'd revised it so I sent the revised full in. It was rejected in April 2005.

July 2005 - sent in Tarts Inc. All my previous submissions had been aimed at the M&B Tender line but an announcement about the line changing was made just before my last rejection and I didn't think my voice fitted the new direction so I decided to try something a little different. Tarts Inc was aimed at the new Modern Extra line. It got a revisions request and a full request but was eventually rejected in September 2006.

September 2006 - sent in Heaven Sent, which has just been rejected.

So why am I at a crossroads? The editor's advice in this rejection and the one before was to keep reading the current books as this gives the best idea of what they want. My problem? Apart from Kelly Hunter's books, I'm really not reading M&Bs much.

I do have one other submission that I could send in but it doesn't have any Modern X elements (those that read Modern X's will know what I mean by that!) and I have recently come to the conclusion that I'm not actually a Modern X writer because I don't feel comfortable writing those scenes!

Aside from that, I simply don't think I have any more M&B material in me. I have ideas but they're not M&B style.

I'm currently polishing up Rules - the seven first chapters of which are at Little Black Dress - with the intention of sending it to an agent or two. I have three previous mss which, having been left sitting for some time, I'm now keen to drag back out and polish up also with the intention of looking for an agent. I've got the baby idea and the allotment idea that have been running around in my head for many, many months, and I've got two partially written mss originally aimed at M&B that haven't been completed or sent anywhere that I could do something with, although they're not suitable for M&B anymore.

Don't think I'm looking for sympathy here because I'm not. I admit to feeling slightly offended by the content of my rejection letter and bemused at the same time (why keep sending me those comps slips when my writing clearly isn't going in the right direction for them?) but the underlying feeling here is that it's time for a change of direction.

As I said earlier, this isn't a new feeling. I was at this place when I was writing Tarts. I'd sent M&B the partial and while I waited to hear back the ms turn a look that I wasn't expecting - it wanted to be written in first person as a mainstream book - so I thought long and hard before deciding what to do when the full request came. In the end I wrote it as a M&B and it eventually got rejected. But it didn't die there because I went back to the beginning and finished the first person, mainstream version, which become known as Breaking the Rules.

I guess I'm putting everything I've got on Rules right now. Ultimately, if it doesn't go anywhere, I'm going to put the writing to one side until I've finished my masters in procurement.

Yes, you heard me right. Even though I still have seven exams to sit this year before I complete my graduate diploma, I've already decided that having finished it, I will go on and do my masters. Then I can be Monica Cole, MCIPS, MSc. Surely all those letters will make me feel good!

Right now, the only thing that could possibly make me feel better is chocolate so I'm off to eat lots of it!