Writers get rejected. It's part of the process. It's nothing new to any experienced writer. In fact, sometimes we get flat-out ignored -- no response at all. That always leaves me wondering if the agent even received my submission, and if so, then is that person simply rude or was my writing so atrocious that he or she couldn't even come up with a polite way to reject me? So, let's just say that, as a writer, I'd rather be rejected than ignored.
When I am rejected, though, I'd really like to know why. Sometimes the agent simply sends a form letter which contains absolutely no explanation as to why I was rejected -- no helpful advice, no snarky ridicule, simply nada. That isn't helpful at all, and receiving a form rejection is almost as bad as being ignored.
Recently, I had a rare opportunity (for me as I don't live anywhere near where literary agents reside) to visit in person with a book agent. I pitched myself and one of my completed, but not published, novels to him. He graciously offered to look at the first few pages of the novel, so I e-mailed them to him the next day. He, in turn, wrote back to me the very next day with a politely worded rejection that actually included an explanation as to why he was passing on my work. I wasn't at all surprised by his rejection since I didn't think he was someone who would really be interested in the things I write, but it's always worth it to at least take the chance when it comes along.
What surprised me, though, was his reason for rejecting me. At least, at first I was surprised by it. After further consideration, I'm not so much surprised as I am intrigued. Here is the line that first surprised me taken right from his e-mail to me:
"You are a good writer, but I think your voice is a little to quiet to interest an acquisition editor."
First of all, I'm going to do a tiny bit of snarky ridicule myself and say, "Seriously, dude, if you want to reject a writer, then at the very least make sure you are using the correct form of too when you do so. My voice might be too quiet, but it certainly is not to quiet." All right, I'm done being snide even though that blunder on his part was a pretty egregious one for a literary agent to be making.
Let's examine his use of the adjective quiet since that was the word that really grabbed my attention and made me think about my writing style. Quiet is not a term I would ever have used to describe me in any situation, especially when I was younger. However, as I've aged and matured, I will admit that I have become a quieter person.
I value peace and quiet; in fact, I long for it at times. I used to need to be the first person to speak up in class or at a meeting, but now I generally hold my tongue until I've heard more and have had time to think through what I want to say, if anything. I've always been a reader, but over the past ten years or so, I've made a daily dose of reading one of my priorities, and a person can't read effectively unless that person is being quiet.
The agent went on to say that he simply didn't get engaged in what I had written and that he thinks there should be conflict going on in every scene. Well, I disagree with that, and that's probably because I actually like to read things that make me ponder and question and that appeal to the introspective side of me. Clearly when I read a thriller or an intense mystery, then I would want to have that intrigue and conflict going on all the time, but I don't think that needs to be a part of every scene in every type of story.
I've had a bit of success with my first novel, The Clearwater House, even though it, too, was rejected by different agents. I finally decided to just get it out there through Kindle and print-on-demand publishing via Amazon's CreateSpace. I've sold enough copies to know that it has been worth my time to go through the process of releasing it this way. The people who have read it have all really liked it, and that's what really matters to me. Sure, I'd love to have had it published in a traditional manner with a nice big advance and royalties galore afterwards, but that wasn't meant to be. I still hold out hope that someday I'll meet the right agent at the right time who will like my voice, no matter how quiet it may be at times.
Until then, though, I'll keep writing and probably keep putting my books out there in my own way. With that in mind, I'd like to offer the first chapter of that rejected novel for your consideration and commentary. I'm thinking of putting it out there in conjunction with a long short story I've written and some poems I've written following my divorce. I've become quite a believer in the power of second chances, so I'm thinking of putting pieces together that show that you're never too old or too beaten down by life or circumstances to make a change for the better.
Another critique the agent had in person to my story when I pitched it to him was that my protagonist, Georgia, is too old. I firmly disagree with that since my overall point and belief centers around the fact that you're never too old; however, he may be right that, from the publishing world's perspective, no publisher would want to take on my book. But I don't really need a publisher if I know that people would actually read my book and that people would actually like my quiet voice and my older female protagonist.
Do you agree with the agent, though, that my voice in it is too quiet, that I need far more conflict throughout, and that I should not open at a funeral? Or do you see promise in what you see here and maybe even would like to read more of it someday to see where her new journey takes her? Please, please, please let me know your thoughts.
Here is the opening to my (in my opinion) completed but not-yet-published novel called State of Georgia:
Chapter One
The flowers were beginning to give
her a headache. Not just the cloying smell of them, but the sight of them – too
many of them – arranged neatly by the undertaker’s assistant at the front of
the church. The largest, a spray of lilies, carnations and daisies with its
“husband,” “father,” and “grandfather” labelled ribbons prominently displayed,
lay across the now-closed casket. ‘Why did people feel the need to send things
that die to a funeral of all places, and why give them to a dead man who never
appreciated the sight of a single flower his whole life?’ Georgia almost chuckled at the ludicrousness of her
thoughts, but fortunately she caught herself in time. She’d hate to emit a
giggle, or worse, a guffaw, and ruin the widow-in-mourning image she was
supposed to be exuding.
Georgia knew she shouldn’t be
ungrateful, especially since it was her own husband, or his body at least,
lying in the casket only a few feet in front of her, but the past few days had
been trying. She’d only begun to accept the fact that Donald was gone. He
wouldn’t be coming in the back door this evening and letting it slam behind him,
a nightly ritual intended to catch the attention of his beloved semi-deaf beagle,
Bowser, who would startle awake from his sleeping spot by the big front window,
struggle to his feet and toddle to his master, tail wagging like mad.
She gave a small start in her pew as she realized
that she hadn’t thought about Bowser for the past few days. ‘Dear God, had
anybody been feeding and watering the poor animal?’ she wondered to herself
before leaning toward her daughter and whispering, “Have you been taking care
of Bowser?”
Sally, her middle child and devoted Daddy’s girl,
glanced disapprovingly at her mother over the sodden tissue she held to her
mouth. “Yes, he’s fine. I fed him before we left the house.”
Georgia nodded and patted her daughter’s arm. “Thank
you, honey.” She felt Sally pull away from her in a gentle yet firm manner, as
if to say ‘how can you be thinking of the dog at a time like this!’ Raising her
eyes to the pulpit, Georgia attempted to focus on what the man up there was
saying, but it seemed to be reaching her ears as nothing more than white noise.
Suddenly, she realized that those on either side of
her were standing, and she began to rise also, but she felt her legs shake a
bit, so she sat back down. Randy, her eldest son, bent down to assist her. “You
all right, Mom?” he asked in a worried tone as he helped her stand. He kept her
arm tucked into his while they waited for everyone to find the right page in
the hymnal.
“Yes, dear. It’s just a bit warmish in here, that’s
all.” She smiled up at him and noticed how gray he’d become this last year.
Where had her little boy gone? Tears began to well up as she saw him in her
mind’s eye bounding down the stairs and out into the freshly fallen snow – a
ten-year-old full of joy at a day off from school.
Randy saw the tears form and said, “It’ll be o.k.,
Mom.”
She nodded and blinked back the tears. Of course it
would be o.k. Why was everyone saying this to her? Did they really think that
she was going to curl up into a ball and rock back and forth like some clichéd
crazy person who didn’t know what to do with herself now that her husband of
forty-three years was dead?
Georgia looked at the casket as the pallbearers
moved into place behind it. It was just a big shiny box. She knew that Donald
was in it, but she didn’t feel anything about that. She had to wonder why it
was that she didn’t seem to care that he was gone. That wasn’t really fair to
herself, though, because she did care; she cared very much. But there wasn’t
anything she could do about it.
She wasn’t the one who had suddenly dropped dead at
the table a few nights ago. One minute he was watching the evening news and
grumbling about the weather report, and the next minute he was silent. She’d
been at the sink rinsing off her plate to put it into the dishwasher because she
always finished first and left him to watch the news while she got a jump-start
on grading papers or preparing something for the next day’s lessons.
She’d had the garbage disposal running and hadn’t
quite heard what he’d said, so when she shut it off and leaned over to put
things in the dishwasher, she’d asked, “What did you say?” He hadn’t replied.
She’d stood up and looked at him to say something
else and that’s when she’d noticed that he was slumped awkwardly in his chair
with his arms hanging at his sides. In her haste to get to him, she’d tripped
over the open dishwasher door and fell hard bruising her shin and her shoulder
where she landed.
Rubbing that shoulder now, Georgia turned to follow
Sally and her family down the church’s main aisle. Randy took her arm, and she
could feel his protectiveness coming through her skin.
He’d been the first person she’d called. “Did you
call an ambulance?” he’d asked her and had been shocked to find out that she
hadn’t.
She did eventually, but there had been no reason to
rush. It had been clear to her once she’d pulled herself off the floor and
hurried to Donald that he was gone – gone to a place that he wasn’t coming back
from.
She remembered looking up at him from her crouched
position next to his chair, really looking at him for the first time in years.
Who was this man? She didn’t even recognize the Donald she’d married. This man was
an old man; he was no longer the Donald she’d fallen in love with.
She’d cried then, even though no tears had fallen
yet today. Oh, how she’d cried. A part of her had secretly hoped the Donald of
her dreams would return, and now that he was dead, she knew there was no hope
of that happening. She’d pulled a chair close to his, picked up his limp arm
and held his hand until Randy showed up.
Then Randy had joined her and sat on the other side
of his father, holding his right hand. Finally, Randy had risen and made the other
calls that had to be made – the first to the hospital to make everything
official, the second to his two siblings, Sally and Jerry.
Jerry had the furthest to travel as he was stationed
in Honolulu, but he still managed to arrive only a couple hours after Sally and
her brood of five children and one hard-to-manage husband appeared. She,
though, had been the most distraught, and Georgia had been secretly relieved
that her daughter couldn’t arrive sooner because she brought too much intensity
with her.
However, she was glad to see her grandchildren.
Sally’s five were her only ones. Randy’s wife had left him for another man
shortly after their wedding, and despite a series of relationships, he hadn’t
been able to bring himself to permanently commit again. Jerry, she felt
certain, was a bona fide bachelor for life, or at least as long as the Air
Force kept him moving from place to place. She had a feeling he’d found a special someone
in Hawaii, but that was just a mother’s hunch.
When Sally had arrived, her eldest, Willow, had
rushed to her grandmother’s side and hugged her hard. Georgia remembered
wincing a bit from the pain she’d inflicted upon her still tender shoulder, but
she’d been so happy to see Willow again. Of all her grandchildren, Willow was
the most special to her, and the girl knew it, too.
Almost a teenager now, Willow had peered into her
grandmother’s eyes with adult compassion and said, “Don’t worry, Grandma. You
still have me.”
Now as Georgia stepped out into the overcast day,
she called lightly to Willow and watched the petite girl hurry toward her.
“Walk with me, honey. I’m riding in your car to the cemetery.”
As they headed toward the car, they were soon
surrounded by Willow’s brother and sisters who all piled into the back of the
Suburban. Georgia waited outside of the vehicle and watched as the pallbearers
lifted the casket with Donald’s body into the waiting hearse.
“Good-bye, dear,” she whispered. “Your journey has
come to an end, and mine, well, mine is starting anew I guess.”
Thank you for reading. Again, please leave me a comment for consideration.
Tammy
