Celebrating Failure, A Rant

(Yay?)

Oh gosh, just hearing the phrase "tell us about a past failure" makes me laugh absurdly and cringe at the same time in the most self deprecating yet I-took-it-in-stride-like-a-champ type of ways. "It'd be even better if there was something you tried several times and failed each time." Oh ho ho ha, buddy, then are you going to get a real kick out of this.

Where to chose, where to chose from. Hm, well with such a great selection of flashbacks offered to me, it seems only fitting that I should pick one relevant to the entrepreneurship course and being a self-endorsing author.

Storytime! (Ha ha, because I'm a writer. Ok, whatever.)
One time I was about to send a manuscript to a literary agency for evaluation and ended up calling the agent I was interested in on the phone. SO. AWKWARD. But I'm thorough and wanted to make sure it was a legit establishment. Literary agents are super annoying and frustrating in the essence that they make you send them all this stuff and say 'you are not guaranteed to a response because we are so very busy, but if you do not hear back from us in four to seven weeks, just assume we have decided to move in another direction and have kindly declined your offer' BUT 'you are not allowed to contact any other literary agent within this time frame or send your work for  proposal to more than one person or you will be disregarded'. And yes, they are ALL like that. First off: so you can't even muster a quick 'sorry, but no' email to authors who are marking down the dates on their calendar wondering if their message even got through to your desk or not, buuuuut you expect us to be solely devoted to you and your non-mutal attention and research interest to nobody else until you make us wait a month and a half to get your permission to send my stuff somewhere else for consideration? Do you know how much easier this would be if I could just type thirteen different recipients into my message and press send at once and leave it up for grabs so they can take it and leave it? But nope, I have to take each hit and rejection one at a time rather than ripping off the bandage quick with a dozen 'sorry, but no's.

So I'm counting that as like thirteen separate pitfalls because each time I had to get my hopes up, wait six weeks, pray before opening the email, and then try not to scream the first three or four times it happened. "I admire your creativity and your story line and well-developed setting are so enticing" WELL THEN WHAT WAS WRONG WITH IT, HOMIE? (To anyone in this boat right now, I'm sure there're quite a few, don't bother emailing them back asking this, they won't give feedback or pointers or a reply--considering their first one took an astonishing seven weeks to type three sentences after quickly glancing at the title of yours). Yes I'm sure that they're super busy people and I don't mean to bash on the non-bashable parts of their occupation, but I think it's pretty petty that they openly say they're too busy to read beyond the first few sentences. I get it, you have a lot of paper to go through, but that's your job and you get paid to do it, so that's your fault for picking something you have no patience for. If people could write mind-snatching literature in two sentences, do you think we'd bother typing up the other seven-hundred pages after that instead of just printing our mind blowing two sentence masterpieces on fortune cookie paper slips?

No, I don't go easy on myself. I have a list of exactly which literary agents and publishing houses I have received a no from or been ignored by completely, just to keep track. I mean, the only thing worse than getting turned down is getting turned down again and looking desperate so they can email all their publishing friends and laugh about it. I assume that's what they do, considering they claim to know when authors contact more than one literary agency at a time--which is nosy and petty: why are y'all so insecure? Worry about your own business. If I send out to multiple and you both want me, then contact me and I'll decide; quit trying to restrict competition for people you're not even interested in. It's like not letting your friend date someone you don't even have a crush on, just as some weird power play. Sure I had to take a break from all the let-downs, which stretched into quite a pause because routine tends to get in the way. But after these last few months, I'm ready to throw myself out there fresh again.

For those of you who had to read this without being directly at fault: I know you came here for an uplifting post and instead got quality content sass and sarcasm. Now we can move on to the actual 'celebrating' failure part of 'celebrating failure'.

YAY, for real this time!

What I learned from this is exactly what I thought I knew beforehand going into this, except this time I really do know it. Let me explain. I knew this wasn't going to be as easy as an instant gratification and that I'd be found first try... but in the back of my mind I know there's a tiny place where that's what we all hope for anyways, let's face it. Going in with the mentality that you might hear criticism is still never enough to prepare you for it. Let me save you some learning; every rejection letter is basically a brief copy-and-paste fluff piece that they probably keep saved as a generic automated response anyways. 'Sorry, but no. But, hey! It's just me saying no, maybe someone else will see this and actually like it. My rejection is just one professional judgement, and another agency may think differently if you go out for a second opinion'. It's disheartening. But you get up, put on a smile, and take it in stride as if each new try is the first try and you were never rolling with punches to begin with. Fake it 'till ya make it, babe.

Here's the important part that got me feeling better (I know it took some digging and scrolling for you to get to this, but as promised, I told you it'll leave off on an open positive note. I always leave off on a hopeful note, hon). I looked at the big-time books, the ones everyone's enamored with and it's ingrained into part of our lives and being--you know which ones I'm talking about because the titles already flash-flooded into your brain without me having to name a single one of them--and I read how many times each of those authors had to hear 'sorry, but no' before their words ever made it to printed ink. With struggle I could relate to the amount, if not more, than most of them (that is a whole different story we aren't going to dive into right now), but when it came to rejections, I figured I shouldn't stop prematurely after seeing how many poor sad literary agents must be beating themselves up over sending a 'sorry no' to what are now the decade's global bestsellers. Now THAT is a failure. They missed out big time. Can you imagine kicking themselves right now for passing the opportunity to represent such currently-famous books? So in an essence I used those established author's numbers as kind of starting benchmarks for myself. "At least I haven't been tossed aside that many times. Look where they're at now. I can push on and send out a few more drafts, right?" And even if I pass their rejection numbers, so what? I won't stop when they would've. As much as I wish I won't have to, I'll just pass their rejection count if I have to in order to get to just that one 'yes' I need. It'll just make for a better rise-to-the-top story about me to tell in the future. :)