On National Coming Out Day, I Begin a 30 Day Count Down to Revealing My Identity

Mice! This is it! In 30 days, my book will be here, so I thought I'd answer a question a day until the big reveal of my identity, the day I will post the cover feature of my novel with an interview in the feature "Victory over Rejection".  In about 2010, some very nice LROD reader, named Anony-mouse, sent a list of questions s/he thought I should answer. 

So here goes: Day #30--Question #1:

Q: What was your most heartbreaking rejection, and why?
LROD: I haven't ever shared my most heartbreaking rejection on this blog before. I guess it was too upsetting for a long time. But now that I have received my first box of my  published novel via priority mail from the publisher, and am getting ready for a book launch, I can share it. As you know, I have had my fair share of agents who have retired, gotten pregnant, gotten fired, and/or left the business. One particular agent was a woman who worked with me on the book very intensely. We had a meeting after one specific serious rewrite, and she very soberly sat me down and told me that I should put the novel on the shelf; it wasn't working, and she didn't see how it would ever work, or how she could ever sell it. I was not expecting this turn of events; I thought we were meeting to figure out which editors we should try first. In fact, I had traveled all the way to New York to meet with her only to have her say that I should give it up. I remember thinking that I was never going to recover from the blow. I remember being really pissed and really down about it for a long time. But eventually, like a weed, I grew back even stronger and got back to work. When this agent quit the biz, I went on to find another.