As Ann Aguirre wrote on Writers Unboxed last month, writing as a profession is all about rejection.  Rumor has it that it’s possible to have your book snapped up by the first agent you send it to (Stephanie Meyer, anyone?), but if that’s not your name, that’s probably not you.  It certainly isn’t me. I started writing fiction five years ago, dabbling in short stories and poetry, until I settled down to write my first novel, just to see if I could.  It was a fantasy—complete with elves, swords, and magic stones—and I wrote the whole thing in six weeks while my infant son was napping.  While I wasn’t so naïve as to think I’d finished it just because I’d typed ‘the end’, I edited it only twice before I let other people read it. A writer friend told me Read more…