When Enough Is Enough - Moving On To Something New

I am sure every writer has faced this moment at least one time in their career. You have worked like crazy on this one story. You have put your hear and soul into the project. It really is "your baby." After rounds of editing, you start sending it out to editors and agents. And yet, the replies have all been negative so far. But, you are not a quitter so with every response, you go back, revise and tweak that story, using those comments and send the project out again and again, and yet the negative comments keep coming back. 

Now what?

First of all, if you are someone who has followed my posts here before, you know that I have often said that many rejections come from sending the project to the wrong person. That editor or agent simply does not acquire your project. Sometimes, it really is a matter of sending it to the right publisher, but the wrong editor. Let's assume that the case we have been talking about above has checked all of those boxes. The story was what that editor or agent acquires.

Now what?

At this moment, it is really time to stop and ask your self if enough is enough. You can spend a lot of time constantly going back and tweaking that story in the hopes of making it right, but is that time really worth it?

If you assume that you have to spend, say three months revising the project in the hopes version 8.0 is right, could that 3 months have been better spent starting a new project? In other words, take all of that feedback from those editors and agents, and shape the new project around that feedback. My answer to that would be yes. 

I know what some of you are saying. You will now start to quote those social media posts of how many times J.K. Rowling and Dr. Seuss were rejected. But we're not talking about them. We're talking about you. 

The reality is, sometimes it is OK to call it quits. Going backwards is not going to get you anywhere. It is always about moving forward.