Thanks JB, but actually I always knew that she didn't deal with my genre of book. I just hoped she'd like it enough to send it on to the guy in her company who did. So after about six months, I sent it direct to him.
As to your agent, it still seems fairly impolite not to get back to you in nine months, however busy. But I guess this a world with its own rules...
Susiex

I think the thing to remember is that rejection (standard form unsigned reply slip rejection) is the norm. And that however brilliant your book is, it won't be for every agent/publisher, or their list will be full, or whatever. Even a 'good' rejection ('you can write, but' is a massive step forward: it means that you are there or thereabous, you are in the ballpark, you are not completely wasting your time. Beyond that, the chances are slim, it's all a matter of luck and whether the right person happens to pick up your manuscipt at the right time. As long as you keep telling yourself all these harsh truths, then rejection isn't too terminally painful, because it doesn't mean you can't write.

The other nice thing (!) about having submissions rejected - as opposed to many of the other rich and varied forms of reverse, rejection and knockback life can throw at you, in your professional and private world - is that it happens in complete privacy. The open the big brown envelope alone in your hallway. You read the printed slip. You put it in the bin. No touchline gaggle of parents is there watching you fall in the mud when the goal was gaping; no jilting boyfriend is showing irritating sympathy for how you'll cope with being dumped; no crowd of fellows students is standing around the pinned-up class list with you, sympathising over your unlucky 2.2; no kindly maternity clinic nurse is telling you in muted tones that the foetus has no heartbeat. Or whatever - you get the picture. And then, if and when you feel strong enough, you can come and share your agony on WW!

Rosy

it happens in complete privacy.

Yes. Which is another reason for only telling a small and select group that you're submitting. Or even that you're writing. It can feel like the last straw to keep having to say to kind enquirers, 'No, not yet...'

Emma

That's a good point about the privacy angle of it - and a lovely piece of writing about it, Rosy!
Which leads me to something Julia Cameron wrote: she says that most artists long for others to sample their work with a contented 'mmmm', and that when we create and nothing comes back, it's like 'dropping pennies down a bottomless well'. I know that for some writers, it's enough just to write. But most of us want people to read what we write and hopefully enjoy it. The 'bottomless well' syndrome is such a lonely one, and I guess is the reason for so much fear around rejection - for me, anyway.
Susiex

It can feel like the last straw to keep having to say to kind enquirers, 'No, not yet...'

That's so true, Emma, especially with people who know nothing about the business. It can be almost impossible to explain to them how much rejection is the norm. One family member asked me if I had 'any lifelines left' after my second rejection! That's what's so nice about being able to talk about it with people on here, who know each rejection isn't a major disaster and a reason to give up.

No touchline gaggle of parents is there watching you fall in the mud when the goal was gaping; no jilting boyfriend is showing irritating sympathy for how you'll cope with being dumped; no crowd of fellows students is standing around the pinned-up class list with you, sympathising over your unlucky 2.2;

- oh i could add just SO many more examples to this list . . . sigh . . .

Maybe I am an example of a writer who has achieved something by perseverance and not letting rejection deter me. I used to get rejections and go into a serious depression. I would lie on the sofa and sleep solidly, through the days and nights. Then suddenly, I would get up and say to myself, "I'll show the fuckers." Then I was ready to get on with the next one.

Of course, it was hard when the next one, the one that was meant to show them, was also rejected. But the process was repeated.

Hoorah! That's the kind of story I like to hear, Roger.
Susiex

Yes, I had slews of rejections - at first directly, and then via an agent (not the agent I have now). Not fun. The plus side is that having done a lot of writing before I was published, I feel far more confident about the second book, and my work in general: that I'll go on being able to write things people want to read, that I'll go on getting better, that I'll be able to change direction if I need to... It's amazing when people get their first-written novel published, but it must be extra-terrifying not to know if you can ever do it again.

Emma

<Added>

By "getting better" I mean getting better at my craft. Whether others think my books get better is another question altogether.

Actually, Emma, you've just touched on my other fear - that I only have one book in me. Is this normal? I've almost reached the end of the first one, and cannot for the life of me think of what I will write next.
Susiex

Oh, I think it's very normal. If you're using all your fictional brain to one end, there may not be space for it to start collecting new stuff and chewing on it. Once you've got this one off out into the world, I bet you'll find new little shoots of ideas keep popping up. If they don't seem to have the legs for a novel, how about some short fiction: some ideas just are short-story length, but they can still serve the purpose of starting a new project as soon as you send the old one out.

Do you keep a notebook? It's good for jotting down the little flickers of things that occur to you, with no obligation to take them further. Free writing's another goodie for digging up things you didn't know were there.

You may find you need to refuel, though, even if you are tackling something new, if small. Pictures, music, reading, cooking, walking, whatever does it for you, except sitting yourself down in front of a horrifyingly large and white and blank piece of paper and telling yourself to Think Of Something.

That is so helpful to know - that it's normal, I mean. And yes, I'm gradually writing down anything that occurs to me that's of interest - though none of it yet feels like it has 'legs' to be a novel.
Yes, this present wip is taking up lots of energy and has done for the last year. It really is like giving birth, isn't it?
Susiex