Is this a hint...?

Last night I had another look at the rejection, and realised that there actually is something odd about this. The slip is dated, and the only way it could have got there by the date on it is if Royal Mail own a Tardis. Either that, or the agent saw me coming; right as I was putting it in the postbox someone was already writing the rejection slip out!

To be honest, the truth is probably that they got the date wrong as well as my name and the story title, but that's both boring and prosaic. The really hopeful thought is that it was someone else's rejection slip, but realistically that does mean my manuscript was still in the rejection pile.

Then when I checked my email this morning I had a contact from someone reminding me that I still own an imprint, that it is still a registered publisher ("on hiatus") and that it could start publishing again. Then another of our original distributors contacted us asking if we had any backstock of one of my earlier books and if we could ship some to them.

Now for reasons already covered - namely the whole new dimension of work that running a publisher adds which cuts into my writing time - I really don't want to go this route. But it's really beginning to feel like something is trying to push me into it. 

Ten days to go. By then hopefully I'll have a request for a full from an agent - which will let me go back to work on #4. If not, plan B is send it to the US publisher, resurrect the publishing imprint I own over here and start phoning old contacts again, like the copyright lawyer we used to use.