Rejection, Part II
Saturday, June 28th, 2008I got another rejection letter today after seven months of waiting. Invariably, the day before or the day after I send a follow-up letter, the rejection slip discreetly arrives in my mailbox. I know it’s a rejection the instant I look at the envelope. Too thin. Not even a full sheet of paper inside. When the rejection has no hand-written message on it, it’s even worse. No evidence of human contact whatsoever. But I know at least a human hand put it in the envelope and sealed it.
In a sense, these literary “dear John” letters embody the harsh reality of the writing profession. Competition is fierce; people don’t have time to craft personal responses, nor are they expected to explain themselves when they stick a cliché-ridden, thrice-copied slip of paper the size of a fortune cookie message into an envelope and send it on its way to hammer another dent in a writer’s fragile ego.
Combined with the angst of being misunderstood by people who read too much of themselves into our work, and the writer’s life seems emotionally perilous at times. This occupation to which we bind ourselves is not for the faint of heart. It requires immense dedication, indomitable drive, and the courage to create a story that illustrates a higher truth. Those caught in the crossfire are casualties of the honest effort of a noble profession. However, the purity of heart with which we stand grounded in the soul of our story doesn’t count for much when we find ourselves having to choose between preserving relationships and perfecting our art.
Why must writing be so complicated? Because all good writing is essentially about life, and life is about people. And the people who populate our lives are micro-representations of a larger collective humanity, and as such, amalgams of them will necessarily appear in our stories, as amalgams of ourselves must also appear if we are to be true to the story.
The decision to sacrifice a friendship in defense of a story seems like a ridiculously selfish one. However, many writers choose this path because of their commitment to the art. Is this perhaps why it is easier to write wooden characters who don’t remind us of anyone in our lives? So we can minimize the risk of wounding someone we care about because they think we’re writing about them? This all-too-common phenomenon seems to reinforce the idea that fiction represents more universal truth than memoir, and perhaps the conviction readers feel when they look into the mirror of story and see themselves is further evidence of the sheer power of fiction to reveal the human condition.
