Bad Things Happen

Bad things happen. It's true. I lead a pretty charmed life and this has been a pretty charmed experience. Bad things still happen. There are some things that happened along this journey that broke my heart in a few places. Not only have I survived, my skin has been sufficiently thickened. As my editor once said to me (I paraphrase) “This is a weird business filled with weird, insecure people. They're all writers.” If I expect to walk around in this business for a while, and rest assured, I do, I have to get used to run-ins with the hurters out there. There will be rejection, as there already has. There will be bad reviews. (Reviews!) The most important thing to me is that I prove to myself that I can handle crushing blows with grace and dignity and not let it affect my integrity. Too much.

I have no doubt that I will have more opportunities for growth in this area. Here's some of what's happened so far:

I had just finished the first draft when the first blow came my way. I had written my first (awful) query letter, which is the letter you send to agents to try and entice them into representing you and your book to publishing companies and the rest of the world. The trick of it is that, at least if you're me, you have to sum up your blood and guts and soul and life in three short but brilliant paragraphs, somehow capturing with wit, charm and poignancy an epic love story spanning 18 years and a woman's entire metamorphosis. I had sent out my inadequate query letter and had actually gotten some lovely rejections back, specifically from agents who are known for their unlovely rejections, so I felt good about that.

I have learned that movement, for me, is the key. It took a lot of sleepless nights and days fraught with neurosis to realize that waiting just didn't work well for me. I HAVE to be doing something. Writing, preferably, but when you just finish your first novel, you sometimes feel a little entitled to a break and your family likes having you back for a while. Unfortunately, if you're me, you go crazy when you're not moving forward.

A lot of times Bestie A would say something like, “You don't have to know why you're sending out that query to that new agent, just send it. Take some action. Give the Universe something to play with.”

So I would do something. Usually it was send out another query. One time, though, I had an intuitive thought. About eight years prior I had taken a workshop from a writer, someone who had worked for a very prestigious magazine and had been published. I was young, maybe 22, and it had been a long time ago, but this intuitive thought said to send her a copy of the book. By this time, I had made the mixed tape and my beautiful friend, a graphic artist, had made beautiful liner notes and a song list for me. So I printed out a copy of my first draft and sent it to this woman along with the mix. Charming, right?

I was at my parents' house maybe a week later. At this time, I was obsessively checking my emails in anticipation of hearing from the golden agent. Maybe once every three minutes, and I'm not even exaggerating. I flew up the stairs to check while I was there. I opened my email up and . . . there it was. Among other things, this is what she said:

“I can't quite bring your face into focus, and I wish you would jar my memory about what you were writing back then or what you wore or where you worked to bring it all back... You were the youngest one, right? I am so close to remembering but not quite there. Not that it matters.

“Your package landed here Saturday. You will be surprised to hear that, though I composed in my head a nice note to tell you that I didn't have time to read your book, I read your whole book. I probably don't have to say more than that.

“Well done. You put a lot on the line, you held nothing back, and you made it work. You get off to such a good start that it is hard to put down. It is very well written, and very deeply thought out, and there is surprisingly full emotion in it.

“I think this is the first time anyone sent me a manuscript that I really liked (the last one involved sorcerers). Let me think about other ways I might be of help. Though there are things I would edit, I think it's in fine shape for you to be shopping it around as it is...”

As I read the letter out loud to my parents (occasionally screaming passages at the top of my lungs) I felt something shift. I was on some track I hadn't been on previously, back when it was just me and my family and friends along for the ride. Someone in THAT world had read my book. Not only had they read it, but they liked it (the only one they like, I might add). Before I left my parents' house I forwarded the email to the Besties. I printed out a copy of it and ran home to read it to Dan, in the same crazed manner.

At 1:30 in the morning her time, Bestie A called me from far away. We read parts of the email over and over. “Well, here we go!” we kept shouting. We were laughing and crying and full of the emotion that I now know comes with seeing another piece of the puzzle fall into place. “Well, here we go!”

Over the course of about a month she worked with me on a new query and made an introduction to an agent she knew. She had said some things over the course of our correspondence (only through email, she had not offered a phone number) that should have raised some red flags, but (HERE COMES THE REAL WARNING) I was so taken with the idea of this really being IT, of a real-live author being into my work and introducing me to agents and all of that, that I didn't pay any attention when something would happen that was a little off.

When things didn't fit with the first agent, she gave me the name of another agent to contact. “I almost worked with her but it didn't work out. Don't use my name, it probably will do more harm than good.” STOP! DON'T GO FURTHER! But I did.

There were other things she said about herself that should have served as warning, but I just kept writing it off as eccentricity.

Here's where it gets bad. One day, her email said:

“My therapist says that i can't do any more book consulting pro bono, so i have to tell you that. i have to watch it. i have an issue there. i can react, though, right? and be interested? you know i am.”

What does that mean? It sounds good, but also sort of bad. I was so grateful to this woman, the thought of her thinking ill of me or feeling like I had taken advantage made me physically ill.

I called Bestie A right away. “Should I offer to pay her? She's never mentioned anything like that. Have I been doing this wrong?”

“No,” Bestie A said. “This is an artist's community. This is what we do for each other. Don't worry.”

But, of course, I worried. I'm a worrier. I really want people to like me. So I emailed. I went with my insecurity and I emailed. That's my part. I told her briefly that I had talked about things with Bestie A and what Bestie A had said. I said that I felt horribly that she might feel taken advantage of and was there anything she needed me to do to cause her to feel differently. You know me, I meant every word.

Maybe it was because she wasn't used to sincerity and the tone of an email is sometimes hard to read. Maybe it was because, as Bestie A will tell you, she had some kind of weird resentment against NY and New Yorkers. This was her response:

“oh no you did not”

For real, that's how it started.

“tell me you did not just give me that obnoxious passive-aggressive bitch slap.

“you use the words of an actress friend to tell me you're unhappy that my time and attention for your book might, after a time, have a professional price?

“for the record, i never suggested that you needed to pay me for the time i spent already, or in anyway scolded you for not asking my consulting fee--i only told you that i couldn't put more time into your project pro bono...

“and now this: not simply 'thank you for all the help you gladly put in,' but an actual argument from some stranger that 'we do it for free.' I ALREADY DID IT FOR FREE.

“as for this 'we?'now it means you and the actress because any interest and compassion i had is gone.she'll help you, though--for free! between her free acting lessons and free subway rides and free therapy.”

Now, that'll put a pit in your stomach. I went straight to bed after emailing her that I was sorry for any misunderstanding and that when I thought of her it would be with nothing but gratitude and respect.

Bestie A called to offer comfort. Dan sat on the bed next to me holding my hand.

It was my first run-in with the uglier side of this business. And still, I have elicited a promise from each person who knows her name that they will NEVER, EVER out her. This post isn't about pointing fingers. It's just about another experience I had along the way.

I will tell you this, because somehow I still feel like defending myself after reading that nastiness: I have had some writers come to me in the past year or so asking for guidance and input. I have even had the brilliant opportunity to take one of them through The Artist's Way. I have had the gift of watching them evolve and of passing on what I have learned and what I have been given through this experience. I have also run across stunningly brilliant grown up women who give simply because they've been blessed, who have believed in me and guided me on this path. It, in fact, IS what WE do for one another.