The Waiting Game

I had a creative writing professor who taught me a valuable lesson as a grad student:
One day, after receiving the thrilling news that my short story had been accepted by a literary mag, I told said professor (with some measure of pride and swelled chest) about this achievement.
He exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke and said, "So? Old news. What are you writing now? Cause that's all that matters."

His words popped my bubble right quick. But I got the picture. You can be proud of publishing a story, but if you're not already working on or finishing the next story, that bliss doesn't last long. You can't say you're a writer if you're not writing. (Except if you're Cormack McCarthy, who I heard can go for months or years without writing a word.)

My topic is supposed to be "the waiting game." I'm waiting for my first novel to be published. I've been waiting for a year and a half now. Things are coming along at the press, and I knew it would be a while before I could carefully plan to nonchalantly pass my novel at Barnes and Noble and exclaim, "Oh my goodness! What do you know. My book!" to the admiring passersby. So I wait. And occasionally bug my wonderful publisher with a coy email. I guess I might be hoping for a reply from her that says something like, "Hey, we've decided to publish your novel earlier than planned. It's coming out next week!"

So I wait, but because I remember that plume of smoke and that unimpressed drawl, "What are you writing now," I'm trying to slug my way through my next novel. Today I'm on page 223. It's summer vacation, I'm officially off duty at the university, and I should be tearing through the pages in this next manuscript. And some days I do. But every day--EVERY day--my heart is still pining for that first novel. Waiting to see it come of age in public, where it will be praised or excoriated, but there, standing on its own merit, outside the protection of my imagination or will. Now, back to the present, the only thing that really matters.

Getting the Call

I guess this first post should be about getting the call from the publisher who decided that my book would be a perfect fit for her press. I'd been published before--several short stories and poems in various literary magazines--but the only experience I'd had that involved publication and payment with actual money was a few years ago, with a lovely little short story magazine called Glimmer Train. My story, "We Cry for Us," which I'd written in graduate school, won second place (and a heart thumping $1000) in Glimmer Train's Fiction Open.

Fast foward four years and about 40 rejection letters later, and I'm sitting in my tiny office, listening to a woman tell me how gorgeous my story is, how she hopes I'll be able to publish it with her. I've heard about this call. I'd read about the whole novel-breakthrough business in King's On Writing. But it didn't prepare me for the euphoria I felt when I actually got the call.
About that number, 40, above. I didn't send the the entire manuscript out to 40 different publishers. (Frankly, I don't think there are that many publishing houses that accept unsolicited manuscripts anymore.) I did what every serious and ambitious writer does, but most keep as a dirty little secret: I multiply submitted. To be fair, I did inform the editors on my cover letter that the manuscript was, in fact, being submitted to other publishers. And I don't know if that hurt my chances of getting the coveted call. But I tried sending it to one publisher at a time, and I don't care what anyone tells you, you just can't wait 8 months for a faceless agent in New York to hem and haw over whether you're a good "fit" for their line-up without wanting to claw your eyes out.

So, I sent out a blend of cover letters, first chapters, first three chapters, and query letters to 20 small and large presses. I followed their particular instructions in my Little Presses encyclopedia and on their websites. I paid a small fortune in self-addressed stamped envelopes, packed my babies up, and hand-delivered those large manila submissions to the post office. About a year later, I had collected 19 rejection letters, which had been ritualistically three-hole-punched and placed in my Rejection Letter Binder. (Stephen King had warned me that a nail wasn't weighty enough to handle all the rejection letters a writer should expect, so I was prepared.)

I wasn't depressed or even sad. Some of the presses had closed shop before my letter reached them; others, resembling a kind of nepotistic, narcissitic commune, didn't publish "other people's" fiction; still others just didn't feel my story "fit" their needs. I got that. It wasn't until I received rejection #20, accompanied by 3 reviewers' comments that each contained 2 single-spaced pages of pretty harsh criticism, that I plunged into despair. Skipped right over Depression and shelved the manuscript from sight for more than 3 months. It wasn't until my beloved partner urged me gently but persistantly to resubmit, resubmit, resubmit, because this story matters. This story is beautiful. He believed in my writing. I did, finally, resubmit.

Twenty more submissions. Nineteen more letters that said, "Thank you for your recent submission. Unfortunately,..." and "We no longer publish...," sometimes in a form letter, and other times thoughtfully handwritten. I just needed one more letter, and then I could lay to rest my baby while she still had a tiny bit of dignity left. This was my state of mind when I picked up the phone and listened, dumbfounded, to the steady voice on the other end, saying all the things a young writer needs to hear. My heart was thudding. Thudding. When I hung up the phone, I opened my office door, let out a scream, and danced--danced --in the basement before accosting my collegaue across the hall and sharing the good news.

So that's it. That's how I turned from a short story writer into a "novelist" in a matter of minutes. That was over a year ago. Next post: the waiting game.