Do you play favorites? Do you have favorite manuscripts? Ones that you care for more than other of your perfectly competent interesting manuscripts? I just got a rejection today for my favorite manuscript. It didn’t really sting, because the story is still out at 3 other houses. But it got me to thinking. *WHY* is it my favorite? Why will I feel a unique level of joy when that one sells that I wouldn’t necessarily reach if I sold other manuscripts? And if it never sells, or if we reach the point where I think it’s going to have to be revised to fit someone else’s vision in order to sell, will I want to do it?
No offense to my redheaded stepchildren manuscripts (and no offense to redheads, or stepchildren or any actual human redheaded stepchildren) but for today, *this* is the one I love. (Note the ‘for today’. I fully admit how fickle I am.)
I just hope I can find another someone who loves it that much too.
Kristy Dempsey 
My YA is my favorite because I think it’s my bestest. I enjoy it every time I reread it, which has never been true for me of any other ms.
And if it doesn’t sell, I’m out of this crushing biz. Although I would always consider a revision, if it sparked for me. Never otherwise though.
Don’t you love that, when you enjoy it every time you read it? Ahh, satisfaction. AND it’s something YOU created.
Here’s hoping it sells soon, Dot. I want to read it!
Sure I do (with manuscripts only, I swear — the kids and the pets are all loved with my whole heart).
I have one pb story that I love because it is mostly real, and about a beloved grandparent (when she was a child). I am resistant to changing the MC’s name, even though my crit group hates it, because it was truly her name. If an editor buys it and asks nicely, then maybe. But I’ll definitely cry.
And I have one (make that two) easy reader(s) that I dearly love because I adore my main characters (a girl and her kitten). They have spunk and verve and panache and I adore them, I tell you.
Some of them make it so easy to love them, don’t they?
I have a favorite. I think that I prefer it because I have spent so much more time with it than with the others. It is also a journey into a children’s genre that I hadn’t tried before so I feel it is a journey for me as well as my characters.
I wish you better luck with the 3 other publishers that have your favorite!!
Thanks, Jodi. Good luck to you too!
I have a pb that RR absolutely loved but couldn’t take on because it would have competed with another book they were about to publish (unbeknownst to me.) It is my very favorite and forever will be (unless I write something else a little more brilliant. ;-D) It has had a few near misses, but is stacking up piles of personal rejections, some of which only tell me how wonderful it is.
When will I give up? Never. Well, I might sit on it for ten years and wait to see what happens to me in the publishing world. Editors come and go and it could make the rounds again then, if necessary.
Of course, just wait ten years and try again! (And you, my dear, have a lot more patience than I do. 🙂 )
LOL!!
I love it as much as you do, Kristy. Sorry I’m not an editor–I’d snatch it up in a minute. 🙂
Katy
You’re so sweet. Stare at this dangling object and watch it swing back and forth. You’re getting very sleepy…very sleepy. You desire to start your own publishing house. When you wake up, your only goal in life will be to become an editor…
LOL!