I recently joked with a friend that I should have made Christ and the Devil hunky shirtless teenagers in my novel, to cash in on the latest young-adult-paranormal-romance craze.  (“I’m on Team Jesus.”  “Go Team Lucifer!”)

As is, The Alpha And The Omega is episodic, yet whole.  It’s religious, yet secular.  It’s mostly horror, with elements of drama and geopolitics, and a dash of sci-fi.  In short, it has no set demographic, except for, well, me.

And that’s why I wrote A&O, because it was the kind of story I so desperately wanted to read, but couldn’t find anywhere on the shelves.  But by writing a story particular to me, I created a work with no mass built-in audience.

So should I write what I like, or what I think others like (e.g. young-adult-paranormal-romance)?

As with too many things in life, the answer lies with money.  If wealth’s my goal, then my next novel will be called The Alpha And The Omega: New Moon.

However, I love writing.  If I was destined to never sell another book, I’d still write.  Plus I’m brimming with gobs ‘o other tales I’m dying to tell.  And those other tales are even more unconventional than A&O.  (In fact, I chose A&O to be my debut novel since it was my most mainstream story.)

So be warned: more religious/secular/sci-fi/horror (and utterly unmarketable) strangeness is coming soon.

About a month back, I entered The Alpha And The Omega in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest.  Today, Amazon announced the novels that would proceed to the second round of judging.

And The Alpha And The Omega didn’t make the cut.

So why am I blogging about it?  Because rejection is an integral part of being a writer.  For more than two decades, I’ve received a slew of rejection letters from magazine editors, agents, and book publishers.  And each and every one of them smarted.

And today, when I realized my name wasn’t on the list of authors progressing to the writing contest’s second round, it likewise stung.  But I was surprised to feel another new reaction creeping into my psyche:

“I’ll show them.”

It wasn’t a vindictive sentiment.  Quite the opposite, it was triumphant.  I’ll show those judges that they missed a staggering opportunity by passing on my novel.  I’ll show those agents.  I’ll show those publishers.  And if the entire literary world somehow overlooks The Alpha And The Omega, I’ll kindly point out their mistake with my next novel.  Or the novel after that.  Or the novel after that…

I’ll never embrace rejection.  But I think I’ve finally learned how to gain strength from it.