mallorys_camera | Depersonalizing Rejection (Reply)

So I applied for a job as the executive director of the local First Night organization. Job pays pittance, but looks as though it could be fun -- basically a one-man show, organizing strategic and operational plans for a family-oriented New Years eve gala that drew 40,000 people to downtown Monterey last year. Had the interview yesterday. Charmed two of the four interviewers, couldn't tell about the other two. I was perhaps a little too animated. At least I clean up well -- in my pinstripe black and brown trousers, my shiny brown leather square-top boots, my white shirt and bright red silk blazer, with my NYC subway token hanging on a gold chain around my neck for good luck, I was Uma Thurman from Pulp Fiction gone corporate. Ketchup! I prepared a PowerPoint to show off my skills at organization and Microsoft Office applications. Even the two interviewers who didn't want to be my New Best Friends liked that.

They would be idiots not to hire me, I think. Despite my lack of experience in the nonprofit sector, I could do a splendid job with this.

Still, they very well may not hire me. And I will have to try and find a way to live with that, not personalize that. It's galling to put yourself on the auction block. And I'm on the auction block all the time these days, as my little book goes begging from agent's back door to agent's back door.

I got another rejection yesterday, from LS who I didn't really want to work with anyway since her office is in Annapolis MD, far away from where publishers lunch.

Thanks so much for letting me take a look at SAT. NIGHT IN THE SKY. It is a romp, and certainly solidly written, but I'm afraid that I didn't fall in love with it enough to want to take on another novel when I already have such a full plate. I'm sorry, but I do wish you every success with this, and am certain that you'll find the right agent to shepherd it to publication. I'll return your pages in your SASE.

I'd only sent her the first fifty pages, shuffling the chapter order so that Hazard in the GCM office replaced Lucien at the Instituta because Lucius told me that one of the big commercial selling points of the novel was its Hollywood insider stuff. But her rejection instantly started me panicking that the book begins too slowly. See, I wanted to write a novel that works as horror, but also as humor. This is hard to do since horror -- by dint of its necessary excesses -- is already nearkin to parody. My trick was to layer multiple points of view around the central mirage, pitting the character with the most literal appreciation of things going bump against another who carries the complete Hammer film archives in his forebrain. The downside to this is that the reader steeps in various back stories for the first 15,000 words. The Canterbury Tales set-up! But Chaucer never made it to the top of the NYT bestseller list.

Towards the beginning of last week, though, I did hear back from Ralph Vincinanza's agency. The book had been passed along to their most junior associate. That's fine. That's swell. Someone who's hungry. He wrote:

I'm writing to let you know that I'm currently reading your manuscript on Ralph Vicinanza's behalf. I am enjoying it, and hope you can give me a couple of weeks to finish it and get back to you. Is this OK?

No, it's not okay. Give me vast sums of money right now.