One year and three months ago, I submitted Flight of the Scions to Harper Voyager.

Today I got the rejection email.

I've been waiting for this email for a long time, but I was really hoping for something other than a "it doesn't work." It put a pallor on the remainder of my day.

As much as it hurts, I think good came from the wait. I started Sand and Blood because I wanted to work in the same world as Flight but couldn't touch Flight or its sequel. So, I got two novels out of waiting.

Speaking of Blood, I think I've finally given up on the editor. It's been seven months and I haven't seen even a single edited page. For a 60k word novel, I think that long is a reasonable amount of time to wait.

So, back a few steps. I'm not going to say square one, because a lot has happened in the last year. So, I think I'll go with "a few steps to the left" instead.

The next steps are pretty obvious, at least for a few months. Get Blood out, finish editing Love (which will probably be renamed to Sand and Ash), and then finish SAD. And then... go back to Flight.