How not to give up
This morning I learned that my last real hope of being accepted by a traditional publisher has been dashed.
I saw the innocuous ‘info@’ sender name, and the smallest pang of residual angst flickered in my breast as my eyes drifted to the subject line and confirmed those were indeed my words courting the publisher after the Re: of their reply.
The form letter opened and with the cold clarity of knowing my eye skipped over the first sentence and right to “will unfortunately not be offering", and I stopped reading.
There comes a time when you no longer feel the ridiculous breathless anticipation or Big Occasion exhilaration or senseless self loathing that predates something so certain and unrelated to talent and effort as failing. You simply understand that you’ve failed, well and truly, and that it’s a small thing in the overarching panoply of chaos.
I knew my failure had come, because I knew its face. It wore my face and in it I saw everything I once feared and loathed — the uncertainty, cowardice and smallness of knowing only failure. I felt sorry to see so much defeat on the face of one person.
Well, I thought, uncertainty be damned. What did I know for sure? Logically, my work was either ahead of the curve or behind the…
