Birth In Reverse (Sound painful? It IS!)

(Return to Sender....)

As most of you know I’ve recently completed my memoir Only Good Things, the story of my zany childhood. I liken the process to giving birth - messy, painful, ooey-gooey. The last phase was the toughest… pushing, pushing, puuushing to finish it…all the while screaming GET IT OUT OF ME! like a possessed demon woman. And finally….

IT'S A BOOK!

Break out the cigars! Balloons! Champagne!

Then came the next step. After recovering from the long arduous labor, everyone wants to see the baby, and you worry – well, the baby does look kinda scrunchy. Will people think it’s ugly? Cute? Undercooked? But – you have to release it into the world. That’s what it came here for, you know. If I stuffed that baby away in a drawer for a year…well, people might think I was a negligent mother. So I did it. I started sending my baby out to be seen.

My friends all loved my baby. It’s so YOU. It has your voice! They got what my baby was all about, and because they love me, they loved my baby.

Then I sent it out to the big guns…agents who didn’t know or love me. People who would look at my baby with a critical eye. I mean, it’s not like I think my baby is the next Baby Gap model, but…it has ten fingers, ten toes and all that, and…well, it’s hard for me to be objective but my writer friends say it’s a great baby!

Yesterday I got my first rejection. Ouch. Even though I knew this was coming, after all - J.K. Rowling had 12 publishers reject her baby before the 13^th accepted it…(and that baby grew into the biggest giant the world has ever seen! ) it still smarts. Because when it’s a memoir, it’s not only your work they are rejecting…it’s your life story. I tried to think of it this way: Everyone gets rejections, even the Beatles. It’s part of the artistic process, and with each rejection I get, I’m that much closer to the one who’s going to say yes. Right? Yeah, I tried to think of it that way. And I know there will be more, so I'm building my callouses.

This agent was actually really nice and said some lovely things about my writing and my “voice”, but here’s why she didn’t take it, and this is what’s plaguing me….she said -

Abuse memoirs are very hard to place in today’s market.

ABUSE MEMOIRS?!!!??? I never ever thought of my baby as an abuse memoir! I’ve never thought of myself as an abused person. I’m not a victim, and neither will my baby be. Well this got me thinking. Just because I know my baby isn’t an abused baby, doesn’t mean everyone else will. So maybe I presented the first three chapters of this baby in the wrong way. (Because that’s all they read- the first three chapters). This is actually a book about survival and hope. The story has many twists and turns, at times its zany and kooky and ironic. But they only saw that one snapshot of my baby- they don’t know it’s many expressions and moods.

So you know what that means? I have to shove this baby BACK UP INTO MY UTERUS again and let it cook a little while longer. Now, for some reason, I am avoiding this painful step with everything in me. I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna (kicking, screaming, crying……waaaaaaaaaah). Well – would you? I mean, really.

I don’t know, maybe I’ve got to take some Lamaze classes or something to get courage…cause all the breathing in the world isn’t gonna make me want to do this.

So… take down the balloons, stub out the cigars , send back the Congratulations cards. This baby is going back in the womb for now.

Sympathy cards gratefully accepted.

Crushed.

I took a crushing blow today.

And what really sucks is that it never even needed to happen. Here I was minding my own business, writing my heart out these last five years for no reason other than to maintain my sanity, and then … a month ago I get this email.

It’s an email address I don’t recognize but I open it anyway, and lo and behold, it is from a literary agent in New York City. I had never sent my work out to any agents or publishers before, but through a synchronistic series of events, she ended up with a few chapters of my book, read it, and loved it. She asked if I would send her 50 more pages.

Suddenly I was Charlie with the golden ticket. It is almost impossible to get your foot in the door of one of these agencies, but in this case it was as though all the planets aligned and the doors magically opened themselves. It was surely meant to be, right?

After I finished running around the house screaming, I got straight to work. I had to respond in just the right way. Not too familiar, not too formal. Act professional, but not too casual. Oh and choose your strongest fifty pages, edit like crazy, and get it sent over while you are still fresh on her mind.

It took me two days and sleepless nights of rewrites, hand-wringing, pacing, sending it out to friends a family and hounding them for feedback, until I finally sent it.

Then I waited. FOUR WEEKS I waited. It was torture. On the bright side, if there was one, it really gave me an opportunity to examine the depths of my neurosis and insecurity. I had extensive dialogue with my inner critic.

Inner Critic: You blew it. She’s gonna hate it.

Me: Her email said that she loved what she had read, and was compelled to write me. Compelled. That’s a strong word, right?

Inner critic: Ugh... She’ll hate it.

Me: But she said…..

Inner critic: You will die homeless and penniless as a result of your horrible writing.

You get the idea. I laid awake nights listening to that awful voice ranting. I got up in the morning and ran on the treadmill, trying to outrun that voice. It didn’t work. (I did lose a couple pounds though.)

This morning I opened my email account, and there it is, the agent’s email address bolded, shining and golden, waiting to be opened. The subject line read “Memoir”. I closed my eyes and said a prayer. Whatever happens, I accept it as being for my highest good. I took a deep breath, and clicked it open.

It was a lovely, compassionate rejection letter.

BUT- she did say she knew this was a rough draft and she'd be open to reading it when it was complete.

I tried not to get my hopes up too high. I really did. But come on…it was impossible. You wanna know the truth? Secretly I banked my whole future on this. My music career has dwindled away to almost nothing. For the past year I have struggled inwardly with how to reinvent myself and where to invest all my creative energy. I have always written since I was a kid. This was what I was supposed to be doing all my life.

When I broke the news to my family and close friends, I did my best to keep my chin up. Everything happens for a reason, I said. But the truth is, I am heartbroken. It’s not just my manuscript that she rejected, it is my life story. It is me. Oh and that Inner critic bitch? Boy oh boy is she having a great time rubbing my face in it.

So what now? Get back on the horse. Yeah, I know, I know….But I can’t stop asking myself why this happened? Why did that agent have to drop into my Universe, open the door, and then slam it shut? And why oh why does life have to slap you upside the head every time it wants to teach you something?

Ouch.