Seriously considering throwing in the towel

Well, I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't want to jinx it, but it seems it's jinxed anyway. The reason I didn't go live with the Charlie Morning kickstarter is that I had two agents and a publisher request a pitch and sample through people I know. A very exciting development indeed. Unfortunately, as seems to be the entire history of my writing, the publisher/agent combo dropped off the face of the earth (no contact in nearly two months) and the other agent e-mailed me back yesterday to essentially say that my writing didn't draw her in and the voice didn't match the content.

As of now, I'm re-evaluating. I don't know if I'll bother to publish it at all. I can't, it seems, score an agent even from a direct referral. Self-publishing or small press publishing will never see me on a shelf in a book store.

There comes a time when you have to realize that your family and friends are the only ones who tell you that you're any good, and the professionals who make a living at this stuff continually, time and time again, tell you that you're not. I've got my game design work and while I'll never make a living at it, people seem to enjoy what I do there. As a novelist maybe I should just face the fact that I've got mediocre talent at best and hang it up.

Also, if you're planning on commenting here to tell me how irrelevant book stores are, or how much I don't need to be on book store shelves, don't bother. You're not helping, you're only making it worse. Because the fact is, whatever YOUR opinions about book stores are, that's what *I* want: to see one of my novels on the shelf at Barnes & Noble. I dream of it every time I browse the shelves there. And I'm having to face the hard fact that it will NEVER happen.