Sunday, July 1, 2007

Life As An AYU Writer -- Part The Third

OR: I just didn’t love it enough… and other “Secret Handshake” phrases that lead to justifiable homocide.

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Okay, maybe not REAL homocide, but ficitional. Or the intense desire to commit homocide. What a blood-thirsty mood I’m in! Obviously the rejections are getting to me.

Every writer who receives more than two or three rejections quickly begins to recognize certain “standard phrases” used by editors and agents. Phrases that might have once meant something, but due to extreme overuse in too many situations now mean absolutely nothing. Well, except as maybe an excuse for the recipient to beat his/her head repeatedly on the most convenient immovable object and/or seek his/her vice of choice.

You know the ones I mean…

And while you or I may scream,
“Why NOT?”

“What was unlovable about it?”

“What IS RIGHT for you right now?”

We will never really know. And it’s that uncertainty — the NOT knowing — that is so frustratingly hard to accept.

Most of the AYUs I know (myself included) have this nagging unreasonable fear of the “Published Writers’ Secret Handshake”. Being published is like a special club and we don’t know the secret handshake that will get us admitted. Hearing or reading those ambiguous phrases like “…just not right for us…” serves as a reminder that we are NOT in the club. :-(
And of course, the big fear — We may never be in the club!

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