Writing Life

I have recently realized that I use my writing as an outlet for the control I need to exercise during my everyday life.  I spend my days biting my tongue, brushing off things that annoy or anger me, and never let my metaphorical bitch out of her cage.  Not so in my writing.

When I am writing a story I can do or say anything I want, and so I do.  Get into a fight with the husband?  Guess what?  My main character is going to leave the asshat, but not before giving him a piece of her mind.  Conflict with a co-worker?  A character will throw a drink in their face at a bar.  Even if the conflict doesn’t seem to warrant such extremes, it doesn’t matter.

In my writing, what I say goes and it becomes part of the story. My characters say and do things that I resist every single day, maybe because they don’t have my restraint or don’t suffer from society’s expectations of what is appropriate.  In the end, I love to watch them over-react.  It’s cathartic to be able to play out the scenario and put to rest all of the “What if I had done…” thoughts.

Maybe that’s why people get so involved with characters. It’s not just that they connect with the character’s situations, it’s also that the characters can do all of the things that readers wish they could do and get away with it.  Readers can live vicariously through them and not have any remorse.

Denied!

I think that the bane of a writer’s existence must be the rejection letter.  Let’s face it, you spend months perfecting a story, this piece of art into which you have poured your heart and soul, only to have agents respond with, “No, sorry.”  My response is, did you even read it?  Did you bother to read that first chapter or was it the title that put you off?  Maybe it was my font.  Perhaps it was the way I didn’t use the British spelling of color.  I can put the “u” in there, really!

For whatever reason, I have been consistently denied and after a while reading the rejection letters really grates on a writer’s self-esteem.  That is, if the agents bother to send you a rejection letter at all.  Those are the ones I really hate, they who just do not respond.  Then you are left to wonder if your email malfunctioned and your novel is just out there somewhere in the abyss.

Submitting my work is torturous, and yet I keep doing it. I’m not even really sure why.  I write, I submit, I get rejected.  It’s a vicious cycle.  Of course, everytime I wander into a book store (or heck, who am I kidding, even a Target), I am reminded of why I submit.  I see the books, stacked neatly there on the shelves, their covers tantalizing me with other worlds, and I want to be a part of that. I want to walk in and see my name on the cover of a book that someone else has bought.  I want to share my worlds with more people than just my sister and mom (thanks guys for being my loyal fans 🙂

It’s work. That’s what it is. Work.  A labor of love it must be, because I’m surely not getting paid.  But even so, it’s not about the money. It’s about that pride of seeing the book with my name on it.  I’ll have to keep persevering and eventually my work will be out there….or at least more out there than it is right now.  🙂

Thank you dear blog readers for listening me off the ledge.