"No"

I’m going to tell you a story today.  Well, the beginning of a story, anyway.  The story is about one year of wishing and hoping, of plans and dreams and excitement.  It ends—I warn those of you who don’t like sad stories—with worry, panic, and finally, disappointment.

In the fall of 2012, I was beginning my adult life.  Fresh out of college, I had just moved into my new apartment and was getting started on my dream: to live my life lost in other worlds—and, naturally, taking note of what went on in those worlds and selling my adventures to publishers for lots of cash.  As does any young hero, I took a chance by sending a piece of my fledgling novel—hereafter dubbed “Snapdragon”—out to a big-name publisher which was part of a big-name corporation.  Now, I had confidence in Snapdragon.  I still do.  It had been my honors thesis, and it's a good book—strong characters, good writing (if I do say so myself), and an exciting story involving assassins, spies, sex, coming-of-age, true love and love that maybe isn’t so true.  I sent it out.  Five months, the submissions guidelines said.  Five months before I could reasonably expect a reply.

I didn’t hold my breath for those five months, literally or figuratively.  I knew it was a long shot—everything I’ve ever read about being a writer is that you fail, and you fail, and you epically fail, and you fail again, and then you fail some more, and then finally someone sees your true worth.  Persistence, right?  So I didn’t spend all my time waiting around.  I went out, found myself a day job, continued to send little things out for possible publication elsewhere (most of the time failing on those, too).  I lived my life.

Then, in March, just as I was beginning to think, huh, that’s my five months gone—I got the email.  An unassuming little note from a secretary, saying thanks for sending your excerpt, would you please send along the full manuscript?  I read it, read it again, stepped away from the computer to breathe for a second, and read it a third time.  That’s when I screamed.  I screamed, I danced, I laughed like a maniac.  And, of course, I sent Snapdragon along.

This time, I was holding my breath.  I knew this had to be good news.  They had recognized my skill and my talent, in just the first ten pages!  Surely they would read the book, love it, and contact me immediately with a lucrative contract.  I tried to hold myself back, and maybe I succeeded in public, but in my mind I was already talking to an editor—who loved the book just as it was, by the way, and didn’t want me to change a thing: a delusion if there ever was one—and seeing my book, colorful and in hardback, on Barnes & Noble’s shelf.

So I waited.  I waited, and I watched the calendar, and every time the phone rang with an unknown number, my heart jumped.  I waited, and I beamed whenever someone mentioned it, and I made plans for a companion book.  I waited, and checked my email more often.

I waited, and I began to wonder whether it would take more time to read a longer piece, or less because there were fewer pieces to wade through.  I waited, and people’s questions about it no longer excited me.  I tried to email back the secretary who had asked for the full manuscript, and when the email bounced my imagination—which had gotten me into this mess—ran off with a panicked scheme of fraud and scams and intellectual thievery. 

Finally, today I got up the courage to call the big publisher’s switchboard.  I delayed as much as I could—I expected it would take a long time to reach the people I was after, or I wanted to see if I could find a more direct number, or I was just plain too nervous to make the call.  But I did it today.  The call lasted maybe five minutes, and an operator informed me that the publishers contact within three months if there is any interest.

So that’s that.  I said thank you very much and hung up the phone, and my year of hoping and dreaming was over.

I really only have one problem with this whole deal.  I don’t mind them saying no—I expected it, after all, and it was my fault for letting myself get too excited over the first step in a very long process.  I believe in Snapdragon, and I’ll try again.  No, what I mind is the fact that they didn’t say no to me—that they didn’t say anything.

I’ve worked in a publishing house.  I know how easy it is to write refusal letters.  You hire an intern, and you get them to write five or six a day.  There's a technology that lets you fill in different names over the same letter.  You edit the letter slightly to suit the recipient, print it out, stick it in an envelope.  Done--took ten minutes max.  Now, the publisher I sent Snapdragon to is at least fifty times bigger than the college press where I worked for a month two years ago.  They obviously have a lot more submissions to deal with.  But in this day and age there has to be a way to do the same thing above with email.  Type a few corrections, hit send, and bam—you’ve ended your association, the writer has closure and can move on, and both parties are happy.  Well, maybe not happy, but at least capable of going to find another publisher.

Three months, the operator said.  Which means I’ve wasted the past two months in which I could have sent Snapdragon somewhere else.  Two months is a long time, forty percent of the time I’d have spent waiting on some other publisher.  Two months of hoping, of worrying, of wishing and dreaming.  Gone.

I’m okay with them saying no, I really am.  It’s part of what I am to be rejected, and to keep going despite that.  But I wish they had taken the time to actually say it, and let me move on with my life and my work.