I love rejection. Before you think I’ve got a masochistic twist, let me clarify. I love rejection because it means I’m pushing the envelope – proceeding into uncomfortable new territory – and that means growth.
My first encounters were during my forays into the fashion business. It was common for me (and other girls) to go on two or three “go sees” a day – maybe a hundred girls showing up to be considered for a single job. When I first started, I fretted about each meeting, wondering if the phone would ring bearing good news about an upcoming photo shoot. But as the “no thanks” stacked up I eventually stopped worrying about it. And on the rare occasion when the phone did ring and I booked the job, it was occasion for great celebration.
Since then, it’s been years since I’ve ventured out of my comfort zone. I’ve enjoyed my safely predictable life, writing about this or that, stringing words together that sell things or change people’s minds. I’ve been comfortable sitting at my little desk, looking out my little window, passing through my little days.
But something happened. I wrote a novel. Now, I know every writer is working on their “great American work.” We wouldn’t be writers if we didn’t take a grab at that brass ring. I worked on it for several (honestly, ten) years, losing myself in a time and place that was not my own. I fell in love with characters that seemed to move through my storyline on their own accord. It was a fun diversion and I always welcomed spending time in “Westabooga, Alabama.” Honestly, it became another place of comfort where I could spend predictable hours stringing together favorite words.
But then I finished it. And I had to figure out what my next step would be. I have a good friend that teaches novel writing and she suggested that I try to find a literary agent to represent it. After Googling “how to find a literary agent” I discovered that most of them are happy to consider new works, but because they have hundreds of queries coming in every week, they don’t have any time to waste. So, they recommended that a prospective author send them a “query letter” to describe the work.
After laboring for a couple of weeks, I finally came up with what I thought was a good one. “UGLY TO THE BONE Set in 1953, it’s a coming-of-age girl power story that delves into the dark Southern theme of race and the corruption of celebrity and tells a multi-generational tale of a mother and daughter’s rivalry and reconciliation.
Set in the racially charged pre-civil rights South, UGLY TO THE BONE is an uplifting and often humorous coming-of-age drama about a girl who chases her dreams, even though the world tells her she’s crazy, and of a bad woman who finds redemption in the freckled face of a child.
SUMMARY: Victoria Blaine is a star–glamorous, desirable, and prone to alcohol-induced-viciousness. When her catfight with Elizabeth Taylor is televised nationwide in the first live broadcast of the Oscar ceremony, Victoria is cast out of the Hollywood Garden of Eden and finds herself dropped into the backwater town of Westabooga, Alabama, where nobody knows a Dior from a Ding Dong.
Twelve-year-old Martha Jean Dooley also lives in Westabooga. Like her father before her, she wants to be a professional baseball pitcher. She hates all things girlie but when she meets Victoria Blaine, Martha Jean develops a film-star fascination with the mysterious woman. This obsession helps the girl escape the hard reality of her own life–a terminally ill father, a grim mother, and a dirt-poor existence on a run-down chicken farm. But all too late, Martha Jean discovers that Victoria Blaine’s beauty is really ‘ugly to the bone’ and it changes the girl’s life forever”.
After I got the letter squared away, I started to send it to agents all across this great land. In total, I’ve sent 38 queries out and braced myself as the rejections started appearing in my email box. “Thanks so much for your query but at this time, your project is not a good fit for us.” It smarted a little at first, but as they kept rolling in, I became able to separate myself personally from the rejection. I’d get one and automatically send out a query to a new agency, keeping the ball in the air.
I remained untouched, until I got back three requests, almost on the same day, for a partial manuscript. My friend, the fiction teacher told me that was a pretty big deal so I sent them the first fifty pages and started watching my email again. After a couple weeks, the first agent wrote me back and said, “No thanks.” After six weeks had passed, the second agent contacted me and said “Not a good fit.” But at least there was still one I hadn’t heard from yet. So as the weeks passed, I kept fingers crossed and held my breath, waiting for good news, afraid of bad news.
Yesterday it came. “No thanks.” And I felt the sting of rejection again. But without a pause, I put on my big girl britches and sent off two more query letters, continuing my search for my perfect match. Because without risking rejection, I’ll never catch that brass ring.
This was originally published in the Times Georgian. Mimi can be found there every Thursday.