Cold Cuts

Writers must have tough skins . . . especially if they are receiving feedback from editors about their work.

Take me, for instance. My skin is so tough my wife frequently fillets my back when she needs a new leather purse. My skin is so tough, not even Goldmember would eat my skin when it peels from sunburn. My skin is so tough, I would break the tattoo artist's needle. Editors have made me this way. And over the years I've received some very cold cuts from them.

How about the publisher, for example, who recently told me, "We can't publish your book because you are not a name. Make a name for yourself and we'll think about it." A name for myself? Who's got a stranger name than I do? Who's more warped than I am? Who's your daddy, Mr. Publisher?

Or how about the publisher, some years back who, after publishing three of my books, called to tell me how disappointed he was in the sales numbers (which weren't, actually, all that bad). "We can't work with you again until you get your numbers up," he said. Get my numbers up? Holy guacamole, what do I do? Accost people in the bookstores at gunpoint and tell them, "Buy my book, or the old lady in the wheelchair gets it!"?

And let's not forget, I've been dumped by four literary agents. Count 'em: four. The last one who dumped me tried to put it mildly, but he came off sounding like a bass fisherman. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut you loose." Cut me loose? I've seen Footloose and I'm less than six degrees removed from Kevin Bacon. I know how to cut loose and to be cut loose. Been there done that. And I'm free fallin'.

Still, cold cuts hurt. I'm weeping as I write this. I've used two boxes of Kleenex to write this single blog. I'm calling my mother later.

And then, when I'me done grieving . . . I'll be sending some new book proposals and essays back to these same folks. They haven't heard the last of me.