Random Thoughts on Rejection

         You know how, in the movies, when someone screams, it’s a real show-
stopper?  Their mouth yawns open and the viewer gets dramatic shots of buildings that the screams are echoing off of.  Everyone, it seems, has the lung capacity of an opera star, they can easily make a scream last as long as it takes to show all the buildings.

         Sometimes I think agents and book editors have a sadistic streak.  Two years ago, I received a rejection for my novel proposal on Christmas Eve.  This year, I received one on Boxing Day.  It was a personalized rejection, which I expected since I had sent requested chapters to be read.  It’s always nice to be addressed by your first name as opposed to “Dear Writer.”  But what followed made me throw back my head and howl.

         The agent in question said that while she liked the chapters, she was not, alas, in love with the book.  But that was just her opinion, and she wished me luck.  While that was encouraging, in a way, it upset me.  Naturally, I want a letter that tells me that not only will my book be published, I can get started on the screenplay, too. 

         Imagine if that was the standard for every level of work performed.  Imagine handing your order back to the barrista.  “This is a good macchiato, ma’am, but I’m not in love with it.  Don’t take it personally, though.  It’s just my opinion.”

         Now the people at my local Starbucks are good natured, but somehow I don’t think that would fly.  “What a witch,” they’d mutter after I left.  I’d be lucky if they didn’t spit in any subsequent orders.  Doubtless, I’d get tagged with a colorful nickname, as well.

         I used to work in journalism.  I had multiple bosses, whose job wasn’t to stroke my ego or marvel at my polished prose.  Sometimes they told me to make some minor changes to a story, then send it back.  Sometimes they re-wrote my opening entirely without my permission or took out entire paragraphs.  My poor mutilated stories!  But I got over it.  This was the way things worked, and it was nothing the reporter was meant to take personally (though some inevitably did).

         As journalists excel at gallows humor, using the word “love” in conjunction with my stories would not have been a smart idea.  Some stories bring praise, some complaints, but most no response at all.  Today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s litter box liner.  After a day at the paper, I would go to my volunteer job and clean the cat cages, sometimes seeing my fellow journalists’ words used for liners.  That kept me humble.  More or less.

         Taking on a book project must be akin to a marriage.  If you don’t love the person, aren’t fully committed, then you might as well call off the engagement before jilting the not-so-beloved at the altar.  But I wonder how many truly great books are dismissed simply because the agent/editor is coming down with a cold, has just gotten back from a visit with the in-laws, or is having the mother of all bad days.  First impressions can be deceiving.  When my father was a boy, he lived next door to my mother and expressed his youthful devotion by hurling apples through her windows and knocking over her Breyer models.  She swore she would never have anything to do with him.

         Yet years later, she married him.  Which is to say behind every published book is probably at least half a dozen rejection letters.  For some famous ones, many more.  Still telling an unpublished writer not to take rejection personally is probably a waste of time.  In the beginning at least.  But try to take heart in the fact that you don’t know exactly why you were rejected.  Maybe your protagonist shares a first name with a kid who stole the agent’s lunch money in
grammar school. Hey, it’s better than thinking your work is rotten, and you’ll never get published ever.  Right?