"We Are Going to Pass"

A year ago I wrote a short children's story. And after letting it sit in my hard drive all this time, I mustered up the nerve to submit it to a publisher.

Having never done such a foolish thing before, I had no idea what to expect. In fact, I'm not ever sure why I did it at all. I barely trust myself to look at the prattle oozing out of my head and falling onto these pages. So what controlled substance could have possibly lowered my defenses enough to allow a professional copy editor to peek at my prose? Why would I do that? Why would I subject 'my baby' to the literary equivalent of a colonoscopy; to be probed, poked and picked apart on its way to becoming a Barnes and Noble best seller or wadded up as trash and tossed in the copy editors round file?

I'm not sure I wanted to put my little masterpiece through all that.

But I wasn't exactly sitting on pins and needles waiting for a response, either. I figured these things take time and after awhile, when I hadn't heard anything, kind of put it out of my mind altogether, leaving my expectations meter set at 'mute'. But I have to admit, a twinge of excitement shot through me this morning when I found a message in my inbox from the publisher. I couldn’t wait to open it.

And after having my story for two months and 3 days, they shared their insights and feedback in this thoughtful and enlightened response:

"We are going to pass, but thank you for sending in."

What the hell does that mean? I know what it means, but what does it mean? 

Did they not like the idea? Was it too silly or not silly enough?  Did they object to my sentence structure, character development? Syntax? All of that or none of the above?  Which is it? Come on, toss me a bone.

"We are going to pass, but thank you for sending in."

At least they didn't hurt my feelings. They could've just said, "Your story sucks.You suck. Now go away and die." But even that would've been more helpful than, "We are going to pass, but thank you for sending in." All I can take away from this constructive critique is, well, nothing. I don't know what I did wrong or right, or what I can do to improve the writing or the story. And maybe that's how they want it. If I was in their shoes, I guess I wouldn't want every schmo who thinks he can write, submitting and resubmitting worthless material, either.

So I'm not going to be a published author. I didn't really expect to be. But now at least I've been rejected by a real publisher. Can't wait to scratch that one off the bucket list. I'm not going to go hide in a corner, though, or slump at my computer and feel sorry for myself. I took a long shot and missed and I'm just going to move on. I kind of equate the experience to getting dumped by a girl who won't really say why. About all you get is, "It's not you; it's me."  It's not my story; it's their response. Or lack of one.

"We are going to pass, but thank you for sending in."
 

Whatever. Kind of makes me curious, though. I've seen and read a lot of published crap in my life and wonder, how in the name of Random House did that stuff ever see the light of day. If really lame writing or writers can find an outlet, why can't I?  Well. I have. Sort of. Here in the blogosphere, anyway.

But what did those other real writers have that I don't, besides a thick hyde, a good agent, chutzpah or perseverance…. and enough money to self-publish?