One Month in the Query Trenches: Rejections, Renewal, and a Full Request

The query trenches have their own rhythm: send, wait, refresh, repeat.

The Dip

A month ago, I shared here that I was starting to query The Fractured Soul. Thirty-one days and fifty-four submissions later, I’ve discovered what the query trenches really feel like. But let’s rewind a bit.

A few weeks into querying, I hit the wall I’d been dreading. My inbox was a depressing little metronome of rejections, some of which arrived the same day I’d hit “send.” I’d already gone through multiple iterations of my query letter, tweaking every sentence, adjusting the hook, overthinking commas—because obviously that was the problem. Nothing seemed to matter. The answer was still no.

I had ideas for Book 2 floating around, but every time I let myself think about writing them down, I stopped cold. If this book wasn’t going anywhere, wouldn’t starting the sequel just be doubling down on a bad bet? Conventional advice says to start a “new project” during querying, which I always understood as moving on to something entirely outside the world I’d built. That’s great advice for people who apparently have dozens of other brilliant story ideas lined up like planes on a runway. Me? I didn’t have a backup waiting in the wings. All I had was Sylfaen.

And the more I told myself that diving deeper into the world of Sylfaen would be “foolish,” the more paralyzed I felt. The rejections weren’t just about a query letter anymore—they were creeping into my belief that this world was worth continuing at all. Which is how I found myself in the unglamorous position of staring at my inbox as if the refresh button had a secret cheat code.

Six Words That Changed Everything

I finally admitted all this to a friend of mine—K.D. Fluitt, a fantastic writer who recently signed with an agent (IG/Threads @storiesandseeds)—and she didn’t give me a lecture, a pep talk, or a ten-step plan. She just said, “If you’re inspired, go with it.”

Six words. Short enough to fit on a sticky note. Short enough to sound like the kind of advice you’d scroll past on Instagram. And yet they hit harder than any workshop, YouTube rabbit hole, or endless forum threads I’d waded through.

I realized I’d been treating “next project” as a rule, not an invitation. It didn’t have to mean abandoning Sylfaen for something brand new. It could mean leaning into the story that was already tugging at me, even if the business side of things was stuck in neutral.

Plot Twists I Didn’t See Coming (in My Own Outline)

Once I gave myself permission, the floodgates opened, and I dove in headfirst. I started sketching outlines not only for Book 2 but for the entire trilogy, and for the first time I could see the larger arc clearly. Having those boundaries in place felt less like a constraint and more like a map: now I knew where the roads could bend, and where they absolutely couldn’t.

I wrote a working synopsis for Book 2, and it was coherent, exciting, and surprisingly sturdy for a first pass. And then came the shocker: a POV decision I had never anticipated, one that changed how I thought about the whole shape of the sequel. It was the kind of surprise that makes you double-check your own notes just to confirm that, yes, this really is happening. Sometimes as a creative I almost wonder if future-me left a breadcrumb trail that I’m unconsciously following.

From there, I started playing. I drafted test scenes to get a feel for how and why voices had evolved during the months between Books 1 and 2. I wrote opening beats, experimented with tone, and revised the synopsis as the characters revealed more of themselves. The more I leaned in, the more the story expanded—not in a sprawling, uncontrolled way, but in a way that peeled back new corners of Sylfaen I couldn’t reach in the first book.

What had started as a slump turned into one of the most energizing bursts of creativity I’ve had in a long time. It reminded me why I love drafting in the first place: the joy of discovery, the little jolts of inspiration, the “oh, wow, I didn’t see that coming” moments that make the hours disappear.

Boundaries, Layers, and the Joy of It

Rediscovering momentum reminded me of something it’s easy to forget in the noise of publishing talk: it’s the creative process that makes all the rest of this worth it.

For me, boundaries aren’t cages to be resented, they’re guideposts that illuminate the path. Outlining the trilogy freed me up. Suddenly I wasn’t staring at a blank page wondering what anything could be. I had the shape of where the story needed to go, which gave me the freedom to explore within it. Total freedom can be paralyzing; boundaries give you something solid to push against.

And writing itself has layers. There’s the rush of inspiration, the shaping of a structure, the discipline of showing up to draft (sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes like dragging yourself to the gym during the holidays). There’s the recalibration halfway through when a character surprises you. There’s finishing and seeking feedback, redrafting when necessary (in my case, twice), revising, querying, waiting. Each layer brings its own challenges and frustrations. But when the spark hits—when a scene clicks or a character breathes—you remember why you put yourself through all of it.

The business of publishing is layered too—spreadsheets, submissions, rejection, patience, resilience. But it doesn’t exist without the creative side first. That’s the part I can return to whenever the waiting gets heavy. That’s the part that keeps me here.

Back to the Trenches (and the Inbox)

Of course, none of this means the query trenches magically disappeared. I’m still here, sending queries and waiting on replies. I’ve had a request for the full manuscript—an incredible jolt of hope—followed by a rejection from another agent thirty minutes later. That’s the querying life: celebration and deflation, sometimes in the same hour. Sometimes in the same cup of coffee.

But the difference now is that the waiting isn’t everything. Writing has become my distraction, my anchor, and my reminder that I’m not just loitering at the mercy of inbox notifications. I can keep shaping Sylfaen, keep discovering the story beyond The Fractured Soul, and keep moving forward no matter what happens next.

So yes, the trenches are real, and they’re not glamorous. But they don’t get the final say. The stories do.

Have you ever hit that point where the waiting almost smothers the writing? How do you keep moving forward when the outcome isn’t in your hands? I’d love to hear what’s worked for you.