In the words of every SNL host ever: What a week it’s been.
This week I was planning on posting some really Good News…that’s since turned into Bad News.
The Good News is that two months ago I got an email from one the small presses I’d sent MFA Thesis Novel (my novel about grad school life) to. The email said they enjoyed my book and wanted to publish it. The email was really short, so at first I wasn’t sure if I’d understood it correctly—but when I realized they were serious, I fell into a state of cautious ecstasy for the next few days. The email came in the middle of some other life shit I was dealing with that month, so the uncertainty of those first few emails added a lot of extra stress to an already difficult time.
Eventually the press sent me a publishing contract, which I looked over carefully and did a bunch of research into to make sure it was legit—which it definitely was. I also wanted to get a better feel for what it would be like to work with the press, so I asked if we could talk on the phone (or Skype for me).
The managing editor was SUPER accommodating about making time to talk to me on a weekend because of the time difference, and I was impressed by her professionalism, knowledge, and the press’s plans for marketing and distributing the book. I also asked for a very small contract tweak (more of a formality than anything else), which she said was no problem. When that was all taken care of, I signed the contract—and just like that, I had a book deal.
I told a bunch of people I was close to, but decided to keep quiet on this blog and social media until I had a publication date. It turns out that was a good call.
Now the Bad News. Two weeks ago I got an official-sounding email from the press saying that because of the economic havoc wreaked by the Coronavirus, they needed to make hard decisions about cancelling future titles in the early stages of production, and my novel was among those scheduled for cancellation. The contract was officially disbanded (which the press was allowed to do) and all rights for the novel reverted back to me. And that was that.
How Did You Handle the Bad News???
At first, not too well.
I got the email in the middle of the day, Japan time—I don’t usually check email in the middle of the day anymore, but I was on my laptop and needed to look up something unrelated in my Inbox. The news hit me really slowly, and for a while I just stared into space not sure of what to do. I also needed to finish this other assignment I was working on, so I dove back into it so at least I’d have something to keep my mind occupied. It only marginally worked—all told, I felt pretty shitty.
When I got home I cancelled all my creative work plans for the evening. I texted some close friends and family to tell them about the contract being cancelled, even though it was the middle of the night their time. (I think I just needed to tell someone.) Then I listened to some music, watched a few episodes of Bob Ross, and went to my weekly tennis club, which had just started up again after a three-week COVID-19 hiatus. I didn’t play my best that night, but again, I was grateful for the distraction.
Though at first I was really angry about what had happened, the feeling soon coalesced into a kind of aimless frustration—the cancellation was really no one’s fault, and just a freak occurrence of bad timing caused by the Coronavirus outbreak. Lots of businesses, especially small ones, are going through hard times and worrying about the future (as I talked about last week), so cancellations to preserve their limited resources make sense. I felt like the victim of some freak accident—one that just happened to destroy my dream of getting a novel published that I’d wanted since I was a kid and had been actively working toward for nearly a decade.
Then I felt bad for thinking this because there’s a lot of people worldwide who’ve been hit a lot harder by the virus and whose situations are a lot worse right now, so maybe by comparison, my problems weren’t so bad.
John Oliver did a really good update on the Coronavirus a few weeks back where he encouraged Americans to protect themselves and avoid misinformation during this unprecedented time in mankind’s history. In the episode he acknowledges that a lot of people are feeling frustrated about all the cancelled plans and other things they’re missing out on because of the virus, and sets aside thirty seconds for viewers to scream and vent their frustrations.
When I originally watched the episode Japan was still relatively unaffected and I personally hadn’t lost much at all. After getting the Bad News, though, I felt like I needed a thirty-second scream of my own.
Fuck the Coronavirus.
So What Happened When You Were Done Being Angry????
I woke up and went back to work.
Taking some time off and getting a good night’s rest put the whole thing in perspective—and again, I’d like to offer my thanks to the friends and family who sent encouraging words after I told them the Bad News.
That morning I made a plan and set it into motion: First, I emailed the press saying that I understood, and asking whether there was any chance they’d be willing to pick the book up in the future. I kept the email short and professional, but also real and honest.
Then I emailed the other small presses I’d submitted the novel to, but whose submissions I’d withdrawn on Submittable. When you Withdraw a submission to a contest or press on Submittable you remove yourself from consideration and forfeit any fees you might have paid, so I wanted to act as fast as possible. I sent each press a personalized message explaining what had happened, how I’d withdrawn my submission because I respected their valuable time, and how in the uncertain atmosphere we were all living in, I hoped they’d be able to make an exception and consider my manuscript.
Before I’d clicked Send on the final message I received a genuine, apologetic response from the press I’d signed with. The editor explained their circumstances in more detail and reiterated that the cancellation wasn’t a reflection on the quality of my writing, saying that they’d still like to publish the book in the future if circumstances allowed. She said I should email them in the future to check in, then specified an approximate time. That made me feel a LOT better.
Then the next day I started researching more small presses to submit to, and two days later I sent my first new submission. And that’s about where I’m at now.
Over the years I’ve realized that when something bad happens or I encounter a setback, I feel worse when I sit around doing nothing about it. Instead, I feel a HELL of a lot better when I take action to make my situation better. As near as I can figure, this is some combination of a learned defense mechanism for dealing with trauma, the embodiment of some prehistoric instinct to overcome adversity the way early man dealt with famine and saber-toothed tigers, and a habit I picked up from my father. In any case, I’m glad I have it.
I also walked away knowing that my book was for-serious good enough to get signed by a press for publication—and if one press is willing to pick it up, then others will as well. Within two days I received more confirmation of this: one of the literary contests I’d applied to, the Malcolm Lowry Literary Novel Contest from J. New Books, selected MFA Thesis Novel for its shortlist—which basically meant that I was a finalist for publication, even though I didn’t actually win. That was a good confidence boost for sure.
Last Words
It’s almost fitting that this whole thing went down the way it did—at its core, MFA Thesis Novel is a story about how difficult it is to make it as an writer, and it’s about how we as young artists who aren’t established yet deal with failure. The story is about some of those big failures, and how the main character deals with them—and, spoiler alert, in the end he gets back up and starts working again.
And I think that’s the big takeaway from all this—it’s OK to get angry when you encounter setbacks, but when you’re done being angry and depressed and frustrated, you have to get back up and start working toward your goals again.
That being said—let’s do this.