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| Friday February 10, 2012 | 
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Articles on the Writing Craft Writing Life In Spite of Rejection
| In Spite of Rejection |
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| By Dean Serravalle | |||||
Can any human form sustain repeated blows to that metaphorical body of dreams or ignore old scabs peeled away before they had fully healed? Certainly not, but it's the nature of the business if you want to remain a writer. And even that form of persuasion wears thin the more you say it. So what do you do when no one is around to cut that albatross from your neck, the one that gets heavier with every rainfall? You give up, simply put, and then you realize you don't want to give up. That's when you return to that white computer screen that itches to be filled with a wild burst of black hieroglyphics. You sit down, lock the door and you amaze yourself once again with ideas and thoughts you never dreamed of putting together. You convince yourself that this latest piece is the best thing you've ever written. You sleep on it, because yes, you have learned something about writing stories. When you wake up, you find that the work is better the next day, like good pizza, especially because you've had a leftover dream with a more complex idea that makes it even tastier. You polish it and dress it the best you can. You call it pet names before you give it a title. You hypnotize yourself into believing that the story is more mature than any of your other babies, and then you open that door to introduce it to the world, wrapped up tightly in a padded envelope to protect it from those brutal, illiterate mailmen who have yet to understand the word fragile. And when you send it away to that magazine, or that agent, you imagine it sitting on an airplane alone, amidst bigger, less important packages, because you've sent it express. It only makes sense that you send a diamond overnight. The interested agent will know you're serious and invite your baby in for dinner. In this setting (preferably New York) the agent will wine and dine your masterpiece, see traces of you, its creator, in its eyes and fall in love. Although you worry how naïve and vulnerable your creation is, you hope deep down that this blind date will work out well, that your unknown story, although young but beautiful in your eyes, will evoke such passion in that stiff, balding agent - that perfect beast for your beauty. You wish in every way for your story to remain pure, yet you know darn well that it will lose its virginity one day, to that Armani bearing agent, or better yet, to an abusive editor at a major house, who will find just the write words to woo it, to make it feel real, perfect in its imperfections. All you hope for by this time is the courtesy phone call, that nervous, humble voice on the other end of the line who calls to ask you, the expectant parent, for your blessing, your baby's hand in marriage, a union that will be both prosperous and free, one that will produce a multitude of offspring who will travel the world with your name, infecting all hearts and minds alike. Not to mention the money.
But seriously, aside from the expected melodrama, is rejection all that bad? Of course it is, and there is nothing that you can say, or ironically, write for that matter, that makes it feel any better. You don't learn a thing from rejection, even those slips that offer inconsequential words of advice like, "the plot seems over-intellectualized," or, "it is occasionally muddled." What is that supposed to mean, muddled? Aren't streets muddled? So, do you take out a broom to fix a four hundred-page manuscript? Does that work? Isn't literature for intellectuals? Or how about, "undeveloped characters." But you've only sent them the first three chapters. Doesn't it take more time than that for a character to fully develop? You've lived a third of an average life span, and you still don't feel fully developed. It's a good thing all this happens via snail mail, or else these rejections, if amassed in one City Square, might amount to a riot. A revolt against the reality that someone doesn't think you're good enough, or talented enough to impress someone else. Heck, just watching an episode of American Idol should convince you of this, you think to yourself, as you read over that story once again, only to find flaws, a plot going nowhere, nothing left to say, the fatigue of delusion, a cackling voice. What is it that compels me to write, you then ask yourself, and you return to the unsettling waters of your dreams. You want to write because you were weaned on stories, those from your mother about some insignificant town in Italy, about some pig named Esperanza (hope), who was lost in a flood but then returned by your other grandfather, who ironically was starving but generous enough to return it to its rightful owner. How little did he know that one of his sons would marry the youngest daughter in that household long after they immigrated to a better place, supposedly, one with snow. You think about stories like that, told from various sources over a dinner table, and then you consider all of those stories out there like it. You imagine your name on their book covers. You see an italicized version of your name under a title on the bestseller list. Then you imagine your father, who is illiterate, seeing his name repeated so many times on a shelf in the bookstore, because it is one of the few words he can read in English. He is proud because you've surpassed him, because he thinks the world of educated people. You consider these possibilities and the trap invites you again with new bait. The pain this time is as masochistic as any other form of torture on the face of the earth. Do you love to write, you question yourself melancholically, over and over again, like you are considering a divorce? It's something you think about in the shower, in between bites on an apple, when you're kissing someone else you love, or in church, where it makes you feel guilty. Yes, you answer yourself aloud, just enough for the person in the next pew to judge you rude. Then you consider why? And it's the why that scares you. It's the why that makes you fearful of the rejection even though you've already published a story or two. Why do you do it if it brings more rejection than glory? Is it because you're a glutton for punishment, or is it because at the end of the day, you're proud to have something to show for everything you see, hear, taste and feel in the course of a lifetime? If only you didn't have that bird hanging from your neck. |
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