Even More Women Who Have Rejected Me

Once a writer like me begins allowing his mind to go berserk with memories of lost loves and editors, the depression really begins to set in. There have been so many . . . women, I mean. And all of them have rejected me.

Take, for example, that trio of women at John Wiley & Sons in New York who, after reviewing my follow-up book to Candles in the Dark, decided that my future was with another publisher. Publisher, Senior Editor and Editor all told me the same thing: It's not you . . . it's me!

I'd heard this before from other women: "I'm sorry, but I've just outgrown you." "I'm sorry, but well . . . I've met another writer who makes my heart skip and constricts my capillaries." "I'm sorry but you deserve someone better who can really concentrate on your mediocrity . . . I'm just too busy looking for a genius."

I'm glad my wife understands below average. She's been telling me for nearly thirty years: "You ain't much, but you do mow a mean lawn."

When I show her samples of my writing, she yawns and stuffs the manuscript under the sofa cushion. "For later," she says, "Right now I'm concentrating on important stuff like America's Got Talent, and later I'm gonna watch Man Vs. Food."

"I can be your man," I tell her. "I've got an appetite!"

"Not now, you idiot," she'll say. "Deal or No Deal is coming on."

Rejection? I wrote the dictionary definition. Now, if only I can find that manuscript I'm looking for. Wait a minute, it's under the sofa cushion.

Other Women Who Have Rejected Me

Now that I think about it, my life has actually been one long series of rejections. Setting out to write in my early twenties, I should have taken out an ad:

Wanted: various women of editorial and publishing authority willing to dominate and humble young, aspiring male writer by whipping him into submission. Looks not important. Should have resume to match the whip and chains and a willingness to state in twenty-five words or less why you are rejecting the author's work. Lord willing, you'll call today and become dungeon mistress to this idealistic young whippersnapper with a dream.

Let me tell you, I would have had takers.

Over the years I've been rejected by three male literary agents, but the most painful (and no, it wasn't a good painful, not a thumb-rack or clothespin painful!) was when Ms. M---- informed me in 2002 that, after two years, she was "letting me go" because I wasn't her type of writer and my prospects seemed limited.

Heck, I wish she would have told me how she felt much sooner. I could have informed her that my wife knew about my limited prospects way back in 1977 when my zits were in full bloom and I informed my high school classmates that I wanted to be a chiropractor with a thriving business in Farmersburg. Not even Sally S----, the class bimbo, would associate with me after that. I was the only guy who respected her for her mind in those days, and we often talked by the water fountain about literary classics and molecular physics.

No, rejection is rough on a guy like me. Especially since I put so much of myself into my work (as you can tell from this blog) and I actually think my words were meant to be read.

After thirty years of rejection, I'm just glad my wife still reads the tiny slips of paper I tape to the front of the refrigerator: We need milk! What the heck happened to the skim milk? Why haven't you read my last two notes about the freakin' milk?

She is, indeed, my first reader, my critic, my soul mate. Now, if only I could talk her into becoming my dungeon mistress, also. Believe me, sweetheart, I would feel right at home!

Women Who Have Rejected Me

I began writing for pay when I was eighteen years old. And since that time there have been many women who have rejected me. This is not surprising, since many editors are women and it is so easy for women to discover my weaknesses and hurt my feelings.

One of my earliest rejections took place when I was twenty-five years old. I was newly married and had my hands full just trying to please my first wife. This editor calls me and, in a voice that conjures up images of supermodeldom, wonders if I might be interested in writing one of the essays that will be included in an upcoming youth ministry book. Naturally, I swoon, agree to the contract and the meager pay, and set out writing my masterpiece. A few days later I send in the piece, thinking I have written an essay that will change the world. (This was before the real explosion of PCs, when writers had to send material in "over the transom" of the U.S. mail.)

Some weeks later, I receive another call from this same editor telling me that she cannot accept any of my essay as it is, and that I need to re-write it top-to-bottom, and that she needs my rewrites the next day. (What I hear is: "And you call yourself a man?" "Is this your best performance?" "If you are married, your wife must have settled for the bottom rung cause you sure can't ring my bell, honey!")

I do the rewrites in my underwear, thinking a change of scenery might inspire, but gosh darn it if this editor doesn't reject my rewrite too. She ended up writing the essay herself.

I was, to say the least, emasculated.

But I also vowed that I would make it tougher for women to reject me after that. Still, after thirty years of writing, it's still happening on a regular basis. A woman calls, I get all excited and flustered and go out and buy a nice bottle of wine and some fancy cheese bearing a name I cannot pronounce, and then she tells me, "You can't write worth a cowpie!"

My wife, of course, is no comfort. She eats the cheese and drinks my wine and tells me to "get over it." Practicality has no place in a writer's world. I love the dance too much.

Virgins

A couple of weeks ago I received a rather large box filled with used books. Many of these came from libraries around the country, where they had been stamped "out of circulation." Most were first editions and in pristine condition, which surprised me.

One book, John Updike's More Matter, is a massive collection of his assorted prose (his last of four such collections) and I noted last night, pasted next to the back cover, that this particular book had once been a proud member of the Houston Public Library. The old-school "check out" grid, where the librarians used to stamp a date, was still intact.

Much to my surprise, I noted that I was the first person to read this particular book, the first, likely, to open its pages. Other tell-tale signs also elicited evidence that this was a virgin book and I was giving it its maiden voyage.

Of course, generally speaking, I like new, untainted things. That's why, for example, I married Becky. She was unsoiled when I got her (or so she tells me) and I've used her sparingly throughout the years to preserve as much of the new marriage smell as possible. The last time I used her was about a year ago, when I asked her to clean out my sock drawer and locate the singles in exchange for a good-night kiss and a peek at me as I walked away in my underwear.

My children were new at one time, but their circuitry is haywire now. Of course, as a parent, I expect to see this tendency as natural wear-and-tear of the young grinding against my superior fathering skills and the perpetual "NO!"

And as preferred, I do enjoy new books. I love the smell of the binding and the gentle "crack" when I pop open the pages of a hardback that's been sitting in a New Jersey warehouse for months.

There are some things, of course, that I have never enjoyed new: like cars. All of our cars, through the years, have been as used as a fifty-five-year-old hooker. Same applies to the houses we've lived in, mostly parsonages of questionable moral fiber and sagging drywall. But I'm not complaining about these things . . . I've learned to live with them.

Now, I'd have the perfect day if I could read a great book and then convince Becky to reprise her role as virgin bride and play act our honeymoon. As I recall, nothing happened. And I got a good night's sleep.

Blue Like Jazz . . . For Writers

After reading Donald Miller's memoir-coming-of-age-reflection-spiritual-theological-whatever-you-want-to-call-it Blue Like Jazz in a single-sitting, I pushed away from the beach front wondering what in the world I had just read. The book is good-to-great at times, but Miller's "nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality" would only be deemed breakthrough spirituality by those who don't have any theological reflections to start with. Anyone in the church who has ever thought about the church would reach some of the same conclusions regarding the church. Most of Blue Like Jazz is more personal than revelatory (which has its place, I'm sure, among "non-religious folks" which was Mr. Miller's intention)--but I would use his chapter entitled "Money" as a perfect example of finding out about things I already knew and was not afraid to ask.

In his "Money" chapter Miller writes:

Writers don't make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It's terrible.

Welcome to the writer's club, Mr. Miller. Anyone who has ever set out to write for money quickly discovers this reality: writers starve.

This was brought home to me through my personal experience the moment I returned from vacation, where I discovered a royalty check from Amazon.com waiting for me in my stack of mail. Now, I have been waiting for this royalty check from the Big Boy Amazon for three years--the accumulation of my various Amazon.com original downloads that the Amazon.com staff assured me was coming my way very soon.

The total: $2.40. That's right boys-n-girls . . . not $2,400 or $240 or even $24. That's two (POINT) four, zero.

There are various ways to analyze this windfall, of course. But if I were to break this down, I've earned less than $1 a year . . . A YEAR!!!! . . . from selling my digital originals on Amazon.com. Or, if I were to break this down by month, that's six cents per month!!!

And Mr. Miller thought he was going to make money writing his book? Join the breadline of writers Mr. Miller. Sort of makes you feel blue all over doesn't it?!

Mouse Tale

I also read The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo, on the beach last week. This Newberry award-winning (children's, fairy, morality?) tale was a quick read at 264 pages, but it certainly had many adult themes thrown into the mix . . . that, and a lot of rats and mice.

I hear they also made this book into an animated movie, which makes sense. It's tough to find a mouse that can act . . . I mean, really act. Most mice get typecast very quickly these days and end up with small, insignificant roles. Oh sure, a few break out and get leads in high-pitched Broadway musicals, but for the most part, their voices don't carry well to the big screen. That's why most mice end up committing suicide in traps . . . they just can't catch a break and end up living under the sink or something. What a life! Hollywood should really do something about this stigma and try to break it. Actually, it's discrimination.

In fact, I'm so pissed right now, I'm calling a producer. Is Matthew Broderick still in New York?

Mona Lisa

I have returned from six days of R & R in Muskegan, Michigan where, each day our family hiked 4-6 miles of beach and brought along enough books to start another Muskegan public library. My first day on the water, I read Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of the Mona Lisa, by R.A. Scott. It's the story of the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre and the three years the French searched worldwide for the painting before it turned up in Italy.

Originally, one of the prime suspects in the theft was Pablo Picasso (who was young and innocent at the time). For centuries now, La Joconda (the French name for the painting) has dazzled visitors and been the cause of many people going insane with love or jealousy or desire to covet the woman in the painting.

Not me, though. I was happy with the book and the cover photo of La Joconda because I carry photos of Becky in my wallet. I've always got her pressed against my buns and I kept doing push ups and sits ups on the beach to impress her. (She wasn't, of course.) Becky just looks at me like the woman in the painting, with a wry smile that says, "You may be getting a tan and trying to look buff, but you're just an old man with gray chest hair and a tattered pair of bathing trunks that were worn by your father in the 1940s. There's nothing on this beach but sand and if you touch me I'll break your cheeks!"

How much a vacation look says! But hey, I wonder if anyone has the address of that Mona Lisa chick? Is Picasso dead? From the glint in La Joconda's eyes, she seems like a real sport. Maybe I'll write her . . . care of the Louvre.