Diary of a Mad Editor

Archive for August 6th, 2008

No Rejection Slips, No Sticky Notes, Thunder Showers, and Other Disasters

When I was a very young man back in high school and just beginning to send my writing out for possible publication in various periodicals, I had this image in my head of the editorial office my submission would arrive at. It was always the same fantasy: a posh office in a skyscraper (even if the magazine was in Idaho, I always imagined the building was a skyscraper). There’d be a large staff of interns, assistants and secretaries milling about and the editor — no, I mean THE EDITOR — would be sitting happily in his big, leather chair, stroking his graying beard and smoking a pipe with feet propped up on the desk, just waiting for my bits of genius to arrive.

In this fantasy, the staff was mostly female and looked like Playboy Playmates (sometimes they were wearing bikinis or even lingerie — hey, gimme a break, I was about 15 at the time). Anyway, some editorial assistant who looked like Heather Locklear, would scurry into THE EDITOR’S office and hand him my manuscript. He’d smile and put his pipe away and gleefully spend the entire day reading my story or poems or whatever I’d sent him (it didn’t matter what, because I was a genius, after all). THE EDITOR would be so bowled over by my writing he’d not only buy my submission on the spot (for a hefty price, of course), but he’d send a big stretch limo to my house and whisk me off to a power lunch with his buddies, the big LITERARY AGENT and the BOOK PUBLISHER. I’d be a gazillionaire before my 18th birthday!

Ah, would that such fantasties were true.

More than a quarter century later and lots of publication credits in small press publications hardly anyone’s ever heard of and a small press of my own, I’m still waiting for that limo. And the bit about the big office? Well . . . that’s the biggest crock of all.

Right now, I’m in my own office — which is in my bedroom. A tiny desk and work area that is really too small for my PC and all the stacks of submissions. Right now, I’m inundated with submissions and envelopes and no Playboy bunnies — just dust bunnies. Dictionaries and reference books. moving boxes and trash and . . . well, you get the picture. The point is there are no hot, young women running around in their underwear and I don’t have all day to spend on any one writer. And believe you me, buddy, they ain’t all geniuses. Hell, I suspect many of the writers who submit to me can’t even tie their own damn shoes!

No, I’m scrounging around looking for sticky notes because I’ve run out of rejection slips again. I’ve just accidently spilt a box of paper clips on the floor and the light bulb above my head looks like it could go out at any minute so I’m probably going to have to change that soon or else be sitting in the dark. I just got a notice from my web hosting company that my hosting package is up for renewal in 15 days so I have to come up with the money. On top of that, the weatherman is predicting thunder showers this afternoon and I fucking hate rain.

So the moral of this tale is that if you are a young writer sitting around dreaming of bestsellerdom and fame and riches and scantily clad models and editors who live for no other reason other than to read your work — guess again, bucko. That editor is likely someone who’s been through everything you are about to go through and more. He’s a guy who is sitting in a tiny cell of an office space and there are a million tiny little things going wrong in his day that don’t really have anything to do with you necessarily, but tend to put him on edge before your submission even arrives in his inbox. Remember that and know that, in fact, you ain’t no genius, hoss and you’ve got maybe a minute or two of that editor’s time to prove otherwise before he jots a rejection note on a sticky and forgets your name.