Skip to main content

Honesty

So I've done enough whining.

I saw a low-level MMA fight once where the fight ended just because one of the guys got tired of getting hit.  It wasn't a ref stoppage, he wasn't being submitted, in fact, he was still on his feet.  He had taken a few shots to the face and decided that maybe fighting wasn't for him, and he quit.  I remember saying to the guys I was with that if you can't take getting punched in the face, maybe you should take up a different sport.  Maybe checkers, or golf, or tennis, where you rarely get attacked by opponents.

I know that I will be rejected.  I know that this will not be the last time that someone isn't scooping what I am pooping, so to speak.  After the thing gets picked up by an agent, I will still have to endure the hope and disappointment when they are trying to sell it to a publisher.  After that, people will (hopefully) read it.  They will for whatever reason, feel compelled to get on Twitter and call me a moron or a monster, they will review it and describe everything that is wrong with it.  Maybe I will do a signing and nobody will show up except for a couple of homeless guys that just want the free coffee.  Unless I'm ready to take up golf or tennis, I'd better be able to take a punch, right?  Right.

But that doesn't change the fact that it hurts.  It hurts to get punched in the face, it hurts to get rejected.  I see no reason to try and hide that.  If I set out to try and capture the journey of having a completed manuscript and attempting to get it published, then I have nothing to gain by not recording my disappointment and self-doubt as well as my hope and triumph.  I am proud of what I have done.  It was hard, and sometimes painful and I did it.  I finished a novel. Now I'm being told that it doesn't fit anywhere, they want YA dystopian vampire novels to sell to 13 year old girls to go with their One Direction albums.

That is unfair.  It's not that bad; nobody has asked for my soul.  Yet.

I love writing.  I do it well.  I can't run very fast, I have no idea how to change the oil in my car, and the last time I tried to dance in public somebody called an ambulance because they were sure I was having a grand mal, but dammit, I'm good at this.  I don't know why, or how it happened, but this is what I have.  People read my stuff and they generally like it.  The book is good.  The new book I am writing right now has a chance to be great.  I am blessed with talent and determination and am surrounded by supportive and patient and loving people. 

Forgive my indulgence in self pity and doubt, but if there were a writer working on their first novel and they somehow stumbled across this, I would want them to know to expect to get punched in the face, I would want them to know that it will hurt, and I would want them to know that they should keep on going, they should not listen to that bastard voice whispering poison and lies.  I would want them to know that I will be honest here, that I am genuinely exposing my wounds so nobody goes into this blind.  You get hit, you get cut and you bleed and you cry and you fall down.  And that's fine.

As long as you remember to get back up, shake it off, and keep moving forward.  

So I'm done whining.  For now.  Until the next rejection, at least.

Cheers.  RP



     


Comments

  1. I wonder what it's like to be a painter. To have a painting on a wall and people saying that it looks like shit. Is the world full of artist in hurtting and in pain. I'm not saying that your pain is not real but saying there must be a lot of people out there in pain.

    ReplyDelete
  2. All things in perspective, of course you are right. There are people out there in genuine pain, untreatable pain, intractable pain. I'm relatively healthy and happy and safe. It's just hard to keep that perspective sometimes when you have put so much of yourself into something.

    Also I'm a big crybaby when things don't go my way. But thats OK too, I guess. I started writing this thing to chronicle what it was like to try and get a first novel published, and I think if I want to be honest (and I do), I also have to record my crybabyhood.

    It's just hard to keep perspective sometimes.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Dance of the Sand Hill Crane

 It is Saturday morning in Feburary and here in Michigan it is clear and cold.  The sun has risen a while ago but there are still streaks of red in the sky, lighting up the clouds, high and wispy.  I am standing by my car after completing some chore, cleaning something or retrieving something and I am slow breathing, trying to calm my heart. It has been a difficult week. My son has a fight tonight, full contact MMA, his first, and I am full of conflict and anxiety about it. Not because I don't believe he will do well, because I know he is as prepared as anyone can be for such a thing, but because I am a father and I feel like I should be protecting him from the violence of the world. Even though he turns nineteen in a few weeks and is stronger both physically and mentally than I could ever hope to be, he is still my boy, and I am scared for him. My other son is fifteen and this week was embroiled in some stupid conflict at school, a misunderstanding that had led to meetings with th

One of the Best of Us

In the stifling heat my breath comes fast and heavy. What the fuck am I even doing here? What the fuck am I trying to accomplish? I'm sitting on the mat, maybe dying, a forty something dad playacting at being a fighter. This is my mid-life crisis, this is so, so stupid. This has to be the end for me, assuming I can get my heartbeat under control, assuming I don't just peg out here on the mat.  I can't do this anymore. "It's okay man, it's okay, you just need to breathe through it. You're fine, you're okay." The voice of my training partner, gentle and kind. My partner, the maniac that drove me to such a state, that I think I might die, he sits next to me and shows me how to breathe, how to calm my body. He teaches and guides me through it, and in a few minutes I actually am okay, the panic settles down, and maybe this isn't my last class after all. "You're alright?  Okay. Now lets get back to work."  And back to work we go. There

A Soap Bubble Nothing

I built a table, out of wood.  I made a thing that wasn't there before.  I cut and sanded the wood, I drilled in screws, and now we have a table where we didn't have one before. It is real and solid and you can touch it, you can feel where I cut poorly, see the rough edges where I didn't join the wood correctly, you can lift it, feel its weight.  It is a real thing that I made.  I made a table. This is not a table, this is a nothing, a series of random thoughts that I had in the shower, which is where thoughts come from. What if our souls are soap bubbles, what if we spread ourselves too thin, stretched out and flattened? What happens when it pops, would you even notice, would you even care? What if we are meant for something more? I am already behind schedule this year I've got work to do, I have things to accomplish, friends ask me questions ask for favors and all I say is yes yes yes and- What is this?  What am I hoping to do here writhing I meant to write "writ