A line from one of my favorite Kevin Henke children’s book, Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse:
“Wow. That’s all I can say. Wow.”
So said her teacher when he saw the purple plastic purse Lily brought to school.
Today, it was all I could say when I read my latest rejection letter.
It is beautiful. Every rejection letter should be like this personal, lengthy, lovely letter sent to me by an editor, regarding my cancer memoir.
I’d sent my book proposal and the first and last chapter to this editor exactly one month ago, then promptly put it out of my mind, knowing it could be months before I heard from her. In the meantime, I’ve written essays, sent out queries to agents and, more recently, resumed work on my other book, the coupon book. At this point I have accepted the fact that my coupon book might actually sell before the memoir.
But I haven’t given up on the memoir.
I look at this rejection letter again and again. I want to frame it. I want to show it to everyone. I want to write something else that this wonderful editor can use. I want to work with someone like this.
She got it.
She read the proposal and the first and last chapter and she complimented both my writing and my style and wished it would work for them, but it won’t. I believed her. From the length of her letter and the comments on what I’d written, I could tell she really had read it and sincerely liked it.
But that’s not enough, is it? An editor liking a book is not the same thing as an editor selling the book, and with this rejection I felt the truth. The rejection was just a business decision.
So I keep looking; a different publisher, a different editor.
And occasionally I will take out this carefully folded, personalized letter, and I will smooth it out and re-read the words praising my work, and the obvious sentiment behind them.
This won’t be my last rejection.
But it might be the best.
