Optimistic Authors

We authors are a special bunch of optimists. We can get a terrible rejection and still find something good in it. Rejections are part of the business we’ve chosen. We’re writers and in order to get our work out there for the public’s enjoyment, we have to have publishers and editors and agents if we’re lucky enough to get one these days. And, all of the people behind the scenes involved in ‘getting out work out there’ have an opinion—some not so flattering resulting in a rejection. Some are kind, and tell us that although it was an enjoyable read, it didn’t quite fit what we‘re looking for. Boy, if I had a dollar for each time I heard that phrase; I could hang up my word processor and take up oil painting.

Then there are those that tear apart your work and suggest that you do a total rewrite on a submission you got rave reviews on from your critique group, friends and family. You scratch your head and begin to feel unsure. I’ve even asked myself, is this my book, or does it belong to the person I’m asking to look at it? Is it my style or there’s? If I change it, will they take it? Because it will take weeks to fix what they say is wrong—maybe longer. Sometimes this works, and sometimes not. Sometimes they (whoever is looking at it) is just having a bad day and have decided to dissect your manuscript because, in simple terms, they can. And, we can’t ask questions or complain too loudly, because we sent it to them for consideration in the first place. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could send back an email and ask, “Can you tell me what you liked about it? Can you elaborate on what you didn’t like so I can learn from my mistakes?” Ahh, wouldn’t that be nice. But there’s a fear we might upset that person and who knows, we might want to send a different manuscript to them someday. God forbid we upset an editor!

Does any of this make sense? Probably not. But it’s better than self-publishing. Therefore, we are forced to take bad rejections and try to find something good in them because we are optimistic authors, and that’s what we do. We are ever eager to bare our souls to editors and agents and hope that they won’t be too painful when they say no.