Get Used to Disappointment: Part Deux
I actually had several alternate titles in mind for this blog:
Accepting Unexpected Setbacks with Grace
Not Whining When Things Don’t Go Your Way
A Practical Guide to Getting Ghosted by Your Publisher
But none of those seemed to fit. Well, except for that last one. Let me explain.
It turns out that I’m not good at accepting unexpected setbacks with grace. Whether that’s an emotional intelligence issue (I’m lacking) or a maturity thing (I don’t have any)... I mostly just suck at it. And instead of not whining, I take an alternate route: I whine. You can ask my wife. Furthermore, I complain, fume, rant, flail my hands in the air, adopt a surly expression, and often sulk. In fact, that’s my super power. I’m terrible at adapting to setbacks, but I can sulk with the best of them.
While I could offer examples from my illustrious resume of “bad loser” moments and regale you with stories of how L-O-N-G it takes me to get over negative events, I won’t. (You’re welcome.) Instead, I’d like to focus on the fact that my publisher really is ghosting me.
I failed miserably at the not getting my hopes up part.
You may remember that I predicted this in an earlier blog. I explained that, at long last, I had contracted my novel with a publisher. I mentioned that this particular novel had been involved in several near-misses with a variety of agents and publishers. It had been lauded, praised, complemented, and, most importantly, very nearly published yet, somehow, NOT PUBLISHED.
I remember saying how it seemed jinxed and that while I was excited to announce that it was “definitely” scheduled to be released in the fall of 2021, I was still a little hesitant to get too excited about it. Because you never know. I told myself that untiI I was holding a hard copy in my grubby little hand, I would not allow my hopes to get too elevated.
The contract I signed assured me that, at long last, the wait was over. It was going to be printed. It was going to be read - by at least my immediate family and a couple of friends. And it even had the potential (fingers crossed) to become a literary sensation, later to be adapted into a blockbuster movie starting Chris Hemsworth or maybe Chris Pratt.
Yeah. I failed miserably at the not getting my hopes up part.
So when the ghosting began, it was devastating. I had already produced a lovely trailer. I was doing some pre-marketing, lining up reviewers, and even had an invitation to do a podcast. A matter of weeks before the slated release... my publisher went silent. I called, texted, slacked, facebooked, emailed, sent smoke signals... Repeatedly. Nothing. (Insert the sound of crickets here.)
As of this writing, I still don’t know what happened. Maybe they went belly up. Maybe they didn’t pay their taxes and had to flee to Brazil. Maybe they were drowned by a tsunami. Alien abduction or Bigfoot might even factor into the mystery. But the bottom line is this: no book. Nada. Zilch. Zippo.
While I find this more than a little embarrassing (“Sure, you contracted your novel. Uh-huh... Right...” wink-wink), I am bringing up this topic today for a couple of reasons.
In the great scheme of things, the false start of one measly novel is no big deal.
First, there are actually some people - maybe five or six - who were looking forward to reading this book. A few - ok, two - kept asking me where the heck it was. One - yes, one - went to Barnes & Noble hunting the shelves for it. I felt that an explanation was in order. These faithful few know that the novel really exists - if only in manuscript form - and that it came perilously close to being a bona fide book bound inside a bona fide cover. (You do believe me, right? Right??)
The second reason is to bring an end to my extended period of sulking and put a positive spin on a negative happening. I mean, if you think about it, in the great scheme of things - what with the war raging in Europe, rising inflation, increasing violence in our city streets, and the fact that the Dallas Cowboys have the greatest pool of talent in the NFL but cannot play their way out of a paper sack - the false start of one measly novel is no big deal.
It also gives me a chance to work on my resilience. That was at the top of my list of New Year’s resolutions anyway: face unexpected challenges, bounce back quickly. Okay, not. But this situation does serve to remind me that the process of writing and of making any kind of art is almost always more satisfying than the process of trying to contract, distribute, promote, sell, and otherwise make a few shekels from that work. The creation part is fun! The marketing part... not so much.
As of this writing, I’ve climbed back up on the horse and have submitted the novel to a few agents. I’ll let you know if someone bites. If it’s another cricket situation, I may consider self-publishing - for posterity. We’ll see.
Which brings me back to the title of this blog. You may have recognized that it was drawn from The Princess Bride - that rich source of inspiration and insight. In addition to helping us understand the definition of “inconceivable” and what it means to be “nearly dead all day,” the film offers this pearl of practical wisdom that I have quoted before, but am still learning to embrace: Get used to disappointment.
Ok.