So I've heard from the Publishing House

So just a few minutes ago I heard from my friend Laura's publishing house, this is what they said in the email to me:



Thank you for submitting your manuscript, A Year in the life of Lizzy Teller. While we truly appreciate the care and attention that has gone into the preparation of your submission, regrettably the feeling is that your story and characters are not sufficiently developed for publication.

Here are our top tips to bear in mind for your next submission:

1. Ensure that your story and conflict are character-driven.

2. Focus on the internal emotional conflict of your characters

3. Use secondary characters to add richness and depth to your central romance but don’t let them take over! 

So... yeah so... um I don't even know what to say, I've always thought that my characters were well written but clearly they aren't. I worked so hard on this novel and now I'm being shut down, I know that I should try other publishing houses, but I don't want to be shot down again. I feel like crying. 

I don't even see a bright side to this, sure my book is currently on amazon.ca for people to buy (haven't told anyone mind you) but that only happened because I wanted to give a couple of my friends a special Christmas gift (even if it is late) of the first edition of the novel. Mom and my friend Sabrina are the only ones that they shot me down. I wonder what I'm going to say to Laura when I talk to her, I'll most likely just play off that I'm not hurt by this decision, I know that its not only her decision, for all I know she may not even had seen it. 

So what now? I so don't know, do know that I need to let my 'friends' know because I promised everyone, I just hope that Laura doesn't start on me seeing as how its her publishing house, would hate to lose her as a friend. 

Novels done, now what?

So I finished my novel last night, took an almost hour to copy and past all 14 chapters into one word doc, I then submitted it to the NaNo website; it said I was 3 words over but word said I was right on target, anyways nothing happened, no congrats from the website, no telling me what's to come now. I don't know if I need to reupload it or not.

After I get it validated, I'll be contacting Laura to see exactly how I go about sending my story to her to see if its good enough to become an actual book. If they don't think its good enough, I may try another publishing house because I know that there is a lot of people that want to read this book.

I really hope that this can become an actual book. I would mean the world to me if I can actually do something exciting with my life, I mean to walk into a library or bookstore and see my book on the shelves, see people reading it, would be amazing.

I got my first request for an autographed novel from one of my friends last night, I know I'll have to sign a lot of others; if it becomes a book, I plan on sending one to all of the girls who's names that I used in the novel. I guess time will tell what's going to happen next.