October has been a month of encouraging losses.

First, this rejection letter from the Winning Writers essay contest:

“Dear Patricia,

Before we announce our contest results to the public on October 15, I wanted to let you know that “Luminous Things” advanced to a late stage of judging, placing you among the top 5% of contestants who entered. I regret you did not win a cash prize, but we wanted to tell you how much we liked this submission.”

Top 5%…I’ll take that as a personal best!

I’m also seeking representation for ORDINARY TIME, the book-length memoir I wrote about my daughter’s cancer treatment. An excellent agency upon receiving my query asked for the first 5 pages, then the first 50 pages, and finally for the entire manuscript! After a thrilling month of hoping they’d take me on, they declined. Who knows why they finally rejected the work, but somebody(s) in the industry, at least the first readers, thought they had something promising, and were touched by my work enough to send it up the ladder. I’m going to take that as encouragement, as well.