Publish or Perish and Live to Tell About It

Long ago I dreamed about it. I wanted it, but it wasn't happening. Published! There's that word again. I was desperate to get published, feel published, and just be published. Several of my friends were . . . so why not me? But it seemed that the publishing gods did not want to know anything about me and certainly not accept me. And that was that. At times I became so depressed, I felt like I was going to lose that part of my creative self that was gasping for breath. I felt that she was just going to drown in self pity and that I could not stop her.

Then after years of writing in the closet, then submitting work, and being rejected . . . it happened. I got an acceptance call on a Sunday afternoon during a Super Bowl game. I wasn't watching it of course, I was writing. The editor called to interview me about my short story and to say he liked it very much AND that it would make their next issue. It was a small college journal, but I felt like I had won the lottery. Well, not exactly, it provided a byline for me at least and not much more, but it was a start. I had a line on my resume claiming I was a published author, sort of. No money exchanged hands, but I was too elated to care.

Validation, finally. After being in many many writing workshops and attending my fair share of writing conferences, an editor found my work acceptable. Wow. So what next? Well, just keep at it, right? Just keep writing. Okay, so I did and then sent out more poems, and stories, and then some of those got accepted in underground magazines. In between, I took more writing workshops, attended more conferences, and kept submitting more work. It was usually rejected by the tens, the twenties, just keep adding by ten.

Occasionally, rather than the printed anonymous letter such as:

Thank you for submitting your work to __________. We appreciate the efforts that have gone into this piece. Unfortunately, given the volume of submissions we receive, even quality work often has to be rejected. Please be assured that your piece was read thoroughly and given careful consideration by our editorial staff. We wish you luck in placing this elsewhere, and apologize for not being able to offer a personal reply.

I would receive an actual handwritten comment of encouragement like: "Keep at it," or "Don't give up," or "Revise and try again," on my returned submissions. I relished these as secret signs from the publishing gods that my time was near. They knew and I knew that my work was worth it. I was sure of it.

As time went on, I would even get letters of rejection stating how much discussion my fiction submission engendered because it had its good points, but apparently not enough of them to be published in some very popular journal that could only afford to pay in copies. Well, heck with it, I reverted back to spending so much time writing in my journal about being a frustrated writer, that my writing time seemed to encompass only my desire to travel further out of the writing closet into the please-publish-me-more light. For literary sustenance, I inhaled Anaïs Nin's published journals. At least she knew what I had to endure, I thought.

Ultimately, I went back to school to hone my writing skills but became far too busy meeting academic deadlines to send out fiction submissions.

Fast forward thirteen years and a few degrees. I pick up and dust off an old manuscript I had kept in a drawer, it was titled Letters Between Us: an epistolary novel about two best friends who wrote letters to each other through thick and thin and the letters remained a presence even after the death of one of them. It was a half-hearted attempt, mainly because I had written a rough draft of about half of it, and then hit a block, and dropped the whole thing. But something made me revisit it. Perhaps, if only to see if I could at least finish it this time. So over the summer I awoke at 5:00 a.m. and wrote until 7:00 a.m., for months. I wrote and rewrote. I read it all over and rewrote it again. I spent the subsequent year refining it even more. Later, I hired a copy editor to review it as I simply could not see typos any longer. I had just looked at the manuscript for too long.

Finally, I wrote my query letter. I had an old book on how to write effective query letters, and although I also found plenty of advice on websites from various agents, and publishers along with sites that connect writers with agents and publishers, my old book's advice was still current. For the better part of a 1 ½ years I sent out queries to which I got immediate responses of "Yes, send it." And then in time, weeks and months later, I got what I call "the never minds." Basically, the never minds mean just that: "It's not what I thought it would be," or "After much debate, we decided to pass," or "Not for me," and twenty-five variations thereof.

My favorite rejections are the ones that totally contradict each other: "This is interesting, but it doesn't really seem ready," or "Thank you for sending your query. While your novel sounds intriguing I'm afraid it's not right for ____," or "Thanks you for sending me your manuscript, Letters Between Us. I really enjoyed how you incorporate letters, notes, and journal entries into the narrative. The sample chapters definitely laid the foundation for a compelling and dramatic turn of events. . . But I am going to have to pass."

Now I'm pissed, fuming in fact, as I continue to read about this person and that person getting published. Often, a connection to the celebrity world or the wonderful world of politics helps said author jump start the process. It appears that somebody knows the right person and I don't. That's how I feel anyway. After my umpteenth hundred rejection, or so it seems, I get a hit. I find Plain View Press in Poets & Writers. Also I find them in one of the many online sites that is a resource for writers who want to get published. Susan Bright, the publisher and editor, accepts my novel, but not until after requested revisions.

Revisions which I found the wisdom in making. I had to agree they did make the novel even better. And now here I am. A published author, a bit older, more bruised and battered, but much wiser. And more importantly, I'm still alive to tell the tale. Just remember that if you can't imagine not writing, like you can't imagine not breathing, never, ever give up. Published will be part of your job description. Promise.