Rejection
What if I told you I wrote a novel.
And the novel took 11 years to write.
And in the 11th year, I started querying agents.
All the agents said no. Some of the agents said no, “because I can’t market it.”
So I sent the novel to small presses.
All the small presses said no. Some of the small presses said, “it’s really good. But we don’t have a market for it. Love to see anything else you write!”
So I entered it in contests.
I was a semi finalist four times out of about 12 contests. But in the end, I did not win publication.
My novel had been rejected in these various ways more than 67 times over 1.5 years.
At that point, it had been something like 12.5 years since I first started writing the book, and a lot of it had become dated. So I decided to go back in.
I rewrote the book two more times over the next year. The re-write included hiring an editor for $1,000 (a good investment, I think), rewriting again, then having a friend read it, and rewriting it once more.
Then the book sat. I sent it only to three places during this time, because the title used to be “Third Time’s a Charm,” and there’s still a little Catholic superstition in me.
It was rejected each time. Two cold, one, again, “I can’t market it.”
Then my mom died.
My mom had read the book many years ago, before she became debilitated, and could still have conversations with me. At first I was afraid to let her read the draft. There’s a mother figure and a daughter figure in the novel that look a lot like she and I. And, let’s face it: the mom doesn’t look fantastic. Neither does the daughter…but the mom? Really unglamorous. Then I remembered what my college teacher once told me: don’t let what your family will think prohibit you from writing what you want. Ultimately, they’ll read into it whatever they want to read, nothing less, nothing more.
And it was true: my mother loved it. In fact, she said “Don’t change too much of it” when I told her I still had some editing to do. Not one to share much of her thoughts, I didn’t know if it was the story, the portrayal of “the mother,” or the fact that I wrote an entire book that pleased her. I never will. I only know she liked it, and wanted me to publish it as it was. That happened at least seven years ago.
The book has been edited and rewritten a lot since then, but the story generally stayed the same. After my mom died this past May, however, something about the mother figure character in the novel, that hadn’t been sitting right with me for 12+ years, suddenly clarified. I went back in one final time, and rewrote.
Now I know the novel is done. Like Baldwin said, “You know it’s finished when you can’t do anything more to it…” So a month ago, I sent it out, to a single press.
This was the response I got a quick month later: “We have insufficient outreach to be able to successfully publish a novel like yours which would have appeal beyond an exclusively lesbian audience… You show a great deal of talent. The opening to your novel is as good as anything I’ve read in a long time… but I’d be very glad to look at any future work of yours anytime. Best of luck to you, Melissa. I do hope you place this novel, I’d love to see it in print.”
This was a good letter. A much appreciated white flag in a sea of lonely robot rejections. Validation. Connection. Encouragement. At the same time, a rejection letter like this is almost harder to take. I know my novel is good. I know I am a good writer: and it doesn’t matter. I still can’t manage to get published. A rejection letter like this makes me feel helpless.
Don’t get me wrong: I am grateful. And it is true, what the editor says about the press. My novel, which is as weird as I am, kind of defies an easy label. This makes it difficult to market. This makes niche presses, niche agents, niche anything an impossibility for this novel. Unfortunately, we live in a world of specialization, target audiences, and categories.
I know why I write. And I will keep doing so despite external rejection. My mom’s death enabled me to complete that book. And my mom’s death has launched me into a new book. This is why I write. Like May Sarton says, “writing is for me a way of understanding what is happening to me, of thinking hard things out.”
It’s just, some day, I would love to share what I find with others.
