I love a rejection!

Yes I love a rejection—not that I’ve had many (you have to actually submit to get a rejection) but at least when I’ve received the odd thanks-but-no-thanks email reply (automated or personalised) it tells me that my m.s landed in the intended target’s inbox.

What I find harder to take than a rejection is no reply at all.

Okay, so agents are the busiest people on the planet. But since they can also apparently tell if they’re going to love you by your opening line and your query letter, my question is this:

Why, when an agent finally gets around to opening an email submission, can’t they hit the reply button straight away, insert a pre-written rejection note using the signature option in Windows Mail (an excellent device for all sorts of standard stuff if you haven’t already discovered it) and click send.

Possibly, in my case, it’s the tears from all their laughing—or should that be crying—that’s blurring their vision! But at least when I get the rejection email (one rejection equals one submission these days) I can go to my snazzy submission tracking spreadsheet (I call it snazzy because it’s all colour-coded and pretty) and I turn the green submission sent cells to red submission rejected cells. End of story (pardon the pun!)

Instead my spreadsheet is all amber, amber, amber. (That’s what I do to green cells at the three month mark when there’s been no reply. It’s not a big red no – yet – so I make it amber, in anticipation of a no!)