A few weeks ago, in my writers group, I shared some of the “pass” emails that my agent had gotten from editors who’d read my thriller, which I like to describe as “The Stepford Wives in the Villages.” (an upscale Florida retirement community known for conservative Republicanism and high levels of STDs)
To sum, these emails gushed over the concept and the plot, but all the editors had failed to connect with the voice. I explained that probably meant that while they liked the story, they just didn’t like how I told it. They didn’t like me as a writer.
How do you get past that? I was asked. How do you keep trying, keep writing, after rejections like that?
The answer is, I don’t know. For some reason, I just do.
This has been the worst year of my life so far. And even as I write that, I recognize how lucky I am. Other people’s “worst year” entails losing children, losing their health, losing their homes. I have all of these. (And I remain aware that I could still lose any or all of them.) Still, compared to where I was a year ago, there’s a lot of pain. Last year at this time, I had two books on submission with several imprints of the big five publishers, and I had high hopes for both of them. My husband had just started a new job, which resulted in a huge payout from the company he left. We were planning big vacations; I was researching MFA programs; life was fabulous.
And then I came home one afternoon and he had moved out. A few weeks later, rejections started rolling in from those publishers. I abandoned my MFA plans, put my house on the market, bought a small home for myself, put my next novel aside and worked on finding a “real job.” (His words.)
As writers, we are often told we need to develop a thick skin in order to handle criticism and rejections. What I learned from developing that thick skin is that it’s handy in situations that have nothing to do with publishing. Thick skin is necessary when your husband of 28 years tells you he wants to divorce you as quickly as possible because “women don’t date separated men.” Thick skin is also handy when that new job has people yelling at you because you committed the sin of showing up for an appointment they made. When the first guy you date after your divorce dumps you to return to his Scientologist ex-girlfriend, it’s that writing-developed thick skin that lets you turn the experience into a funny anecdote rather than an excuse to stop dating.
I guess this thick skin is why I keep writing. Or maybe it’s a thick head. I finished my first novel in 1992. I spent more years than I like to remember writing and trying unsuccessfully to sell screenplays. I won a few minor awards; even signed with an agent who apparently spent more time reading the Daily Racing Form than scripts. In 2012, with many of my online screenwriting friends producing and making their own movies, I decided it would be easier to self-publish a novel than to make a movie from one of my scripts. And perhaps that thinking doomed my chances of traditional publishing, since I’ve self-published two novels since then.
Still, my goal remains to be traditionally published, and it seems more out of reach than ever at this point. Is it the thick head that’s refusing to let me hear a message from the universe that I’m not a good- enough writer for the Big 5? When these thoughts threaten to overwhelm me, I’m reminded of a story that one of my workshop leaders likes to tell. He had taught a famous writer as an undergrad, and he’s often asked whether that writer was the most talented person he’d taught. His answer is no; the most talented person had bad luck and then just gave up.
We all know what luck is, but what constitutes talent? I often hear the saying that success is hard work plus luck, but where does talent fit into that equation? Most of us think of talent as being given by God or nature. My son played a lot of baseball growing up; in that sport there’s a saying: “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” My son worked very hard but he wasn’t talented enough, and there were enough talented players that did work hard that he was unable to progress. (And while the talented ones who didn’t work hard got farther in the short run, in the long run they are worse off than he is now.)
When my son stopped succeeded and started struggling in baseball, it was so painful that I had to “unfollow” other baseball parents whose sons were still progressing in the sport. Likewise, now when I go on Facebook and I see friends celebrating long-term marriages or publishing contracts, I can’t help asking why them and not me. What’s wrong with me, my voice, my stories that I’m not worth publishing or holding onto? Is this something I can fix? Or maybe there’s nothing wrong at all; I just haven’t found the right publisher or person.
Or maybe I just use too many semi-colons.
I may not ever get that publishing contract. I might not ever be in a long-term relationship again. But I can rewrite my personal definition of success.
Right now it’s: “I never gave up.”
