"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." (Boswell's Life of Johnson)
Previously on Confessions of a Blockhead, I described how my experience as an estate gardener on Long Island's Gold Coast inspired, drove, or goaded me into writing a memoir – a memoir that I fully intend to have published, and lovingly fondle as I pick up one of twenty battered copies in the big cardboard remainder bin at Stop and Shop. Next, my manuscript, or parts of it, will be sent forth to seduce friends, family, and literary agents. I'll start, though, by picking up threads from comments on the previous diary.
First off, why write for money? Writing is a notoriously inefficient way to earn a living – almost as bad as acting. Professional writers must reconcile themselves to a constant round of queries (more on queries later), proposals, research, occasional bouts of writing, many extended bouts of rewriting, interminable waits for a response or an edited manuscript or a paycheck, and of course, rejection.
Cynthia Heimel in her classic and adorable If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet?, writes a lot about rejection. It's true that she's talking about rejection within a romantic relationship, but much of what she has to say can be lifted and transferred to writing without altering a word (well, maybe one word.)
There are two types of rejection. The first is a blow to the ego, the second a blow to one's actual self.
Ego rejection we get about as regularly as lunch. A client hates our presentation. A loan officer wonders who we think we're kidding. A casting director says, "That was fabulous! Next?" A girl with a great profile says, "No, I'm sorry, I'm busy for the next three months."
This kind of rejection is as damaging as your self-esteem. If you're a conceited snot, you just shrug and decide the client's a moron, the loan officer's a mutant, the casting director's corrupt. (You'll also decide that the girl with the great profile is clearly a lesbian, but you'll feel it more, since everyone's sexual ego is their most tender vulnerability.) But if you have low self-esteem, any and all ego rejection will simply confirm your fears and you'll go on your moody, suicidal way.
All lot of rejection in writing is at the ego level: form rejections and non-responses. The editorial equivalent of "That was fabulous! Next?" is: "Your book/article/poem/play/graphic novel doesn't meet our needs at this time." If they're nice, they'll add something like: "Good luck in placing your work with another agent/editor/publisher."
The other kind of rejection – the bad kind, the kind that keeps you up at night and forces you to wonder how you went wrong in every major decision of your life – comes after someone really gets to know you.
Rejection of the self is the killer, major surgery of the soul. You've let your barriers down. Your thoughts and feelings and visions and revisions are no longer bottled lonely and weird within yourself, but are now flowing freely and happily through that psychic window that opens between you and your beloved.
Here, substitute "agent" or "editor" for "beloved." They may be the same in your life, but I doubt it.
This is the kind of rejection that no one wants to talk about. Or think about.
Because not only is this rejection horrendously painful, it's humiliating. We're not supposed to care. We're supposed to be groovy and independent, it's the law.
For you as a writer, this kind of rejection occurs after the agent or editor has actually read your manuscript. They're not rejecting a nameless, faceless letter or email anymore: they're rejecting you, and every part of you that you poured into your work.
So, does being a professional writer sound like fun yet? Because we all know how fun it is to be in a failed relationship. You can make money writing, and every once in a while, a very good or very fortunate writer will make a lot of money. But why do we have to deal with people like agents and editors and publishers, anyway?
One answer is, you don't anymore. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of what used to be called "vanity presses" and now go under a variety of new aliases, that will print and bind whatever you write, whether it's drivel or genius. The catch is, you pay them to do it. This industry, which has now expanded into the realm of POD (print on demand) and e-books, serves a perfectly legitimate purpose: it eliminates all possibility of ego rejection, at least at one level. It also provides a way for writers of family histories or personal memoirs or community cookbooks to get in their work in tangible, saleable form without jumping though a lot of hoops. It is not the same as getting published.
In what I will call "real" publishing, and probably get flamed for, you – the author – are paid for your work, which is then produced, marketed, and sold like any tangible product. Well, not exactly like any product, since there are number of conventions peculiar to books and publishing. The reason that someone like me approaches agents is that agents are business people, who presumably understand the business of publishing.
One of my previous commenters (and thanks to all of you who read, commented on, or recommended my previous diary) had this to say about agents, editors, and publishers:
The publishing industry is full of middlemen whose imprimature (sic) needs to be sought. It's my sense that many of these middlemen do not like writing themselves (they like negotiating and bargaining and selling someone something). So, their empathy for authors is rather thin. Art promoters are the same. No talent people seeking to suck up some profit for themselves.
I respectfully disagree with a few of the points here. I should add that I don't know any agents, editors, or publishers personally (not yet, anyway), but I've read a tremendous amount about them, and communicated in writing with a few. First, many agents and editors are also writers, some active, some not. Yes, they like negotiating and bargaining and selling someone something. That's OK, because I don't. I'm a terrible business person, and I hate confrontation – it's taken me most of my life to realize that, but I accept it. If I can find someone to do that for me, like a helpless maiden seeking a burly, well-armored knight to be her champion, then fine (Is that analogy just a little bit uncomfortable? Hmmm.). Empathy for (or with) authors? Maybe, maybe not. Art promoters? Don't know any. No talent? Again, that's a pretty harsh judgment on a very diverse group of people. Check out the essays that appear on many agents' sites, or some of the literary blogs, like the extinct-but-not-forgotten
Miss Snark. There's a lot of good writing out there. Are there unpleasant people in the publishing industry? Duh. Find me an industry or a business or a neighborhood that doesn't have some unsavory characters.
Let's say you're a farmer growing apples. Most of your time is spent in the orchard, except maybe for December and January. You might have a farm stand, but if you want to sell large amounts of your apples to people outside of your immediate neighborhood, you're going to need help. So, you drive down to the big produce market in the big city. A broker takes one look at your apples, and says, "I can't sell them. They're full of codling moth and apple maggot." What's your response? "You don't know what you're talking about?" "I spent months growing these apples – surely they have some value?" "I've been growing apples for years, so these must be fine?" Or, "OK, I need to do some work on my cultural practices. See you next year."
The fruit broker doesn't have to know how to grow apples. Her (or she) has to be able to sell apples. A broker who tries to soften the blow by telling you how hard you worked, or what a nice person you seem to be, or how that one apple looks pretty good, is not doing you any favors. You can make the stretch from apples to literature. An agent or editor who rejects your work is making a business decision based on (perceived) salability. But it still hurts.
Well, I lied – I didn’t send my manuscript out to anybody in this diary. You'll have to wait for the next Confession of a Blockhead.