Love,❤️ ALBA, rejection and the Writer’s Despair

Well, the time has come to talk about my new novel, LOVE, ❤ALBA which comes out August 10, and why I wrote it, and why I decided to self publish, and how dismayed and discouraged I became when I found that my agent could not find a publisher: because there must be many writers, successful or just starting out, who can benefit from my experience and boy! have I learnt a lot! I had just published The Treasure of Montségur, a pretty serious novel set in 13^th century France. This is a period that makes living in the 21^st Century look like a piece of cake! In that book, I was exploring how you find hope and joy under sickening circumstances. This is always the way with writing: “We do not write in order to be understood,” wrote C. Day Lewis. “We write in order to understand.” Afterwards I wanted to write something light-hearted, fun, sweet, because this is truly a beautiful world. I wanted to write a simple love story, which actually turned into three love stories intertwining—and it would have something to do with aging, with illicit or forbidden love, with friendship, sacrifice, and breaking the cultural conditioning that keeps us from meeting our true potential. And it would be told by a cat. Why? Well, my beloved cat, Alba, had recently died. I thought about her a lot, the most beautiful and perfect cat, thoughtful, loving, playful, observant. I thought a witty, wise little cat as narrator might see into dimensions that the “2-leggeds” could not; she could offer commentary and advice that we humans need. Like: It always surprises me when the 2-leggeds hate themselves… who would you like, if not yourself? After I finished Love, Alba I discovered my agent could not sell it. Whoa! I was shocked! Is it that bad? Good gracious, 1, 052,803 books were published in the US in 2009, and each year since more than a million books are published! With my track record (thirteen books, three on the bestseller lists) no one would publish Love, ❤Alba? My agent sent it to twelve publishers. “I can’t think of anyone else to send it to,” she reported. I was shaken. In my book, For Writers Only, I have a chapter on rejections: Robert Pirsig received 120 rejections before publishing his bestseller, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The bestselling novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull went to forty publishers; John Creasy, an English mystery writer racked up 734 rejections before selling his first book, and went on to write 600 more books under 28 pseudonyms. The list of rejected bestselling authors is frightening (or hopeful). For the writer, though, it’s emotionally damaging. You doubt yourself. Doubt your work. (“Not to have an audience is a kind of death,” wrote Tillie Olsen.) Then last summer I picked up the manuscript that I had put away for more than two years. “But this is really good!” I thought. “They’re wrong.” Here’s a quote from Saul Bellow (also found in my book, For Writers Only)*: “I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, ‘To hell with you.’” (*For Writers Only was written for myself during a particularly dry period, when I could get nothing published. I wrote six books in eight years. I wrote FWO to encourage myself in the lonely days of creating, when I cried a lot and fell prey to fear, despair, and the critical disdain of my Inner Judge. I wrote it to remind myself that it is the business of the writer to WRITE! It’s available at bookstores and at Amazon.  I recommend it for anyone creative: it’s “Not For Writers Only.”) Now I’ve talked enough for my first blog. Later I’ll tell you what LOVE, ❤ALBA is about and how different it is from a lot of books being published now: (Which could be why it could not find a publisher) and in a later blog I’ll tell what I’ve learned about self-publishing. Right now, my advice to all new writers, and to all those writers today who are discouraged: Keep on! Trust yourself! Write every day. Remember the French proverb: “Only he who does nothing makes a mistake.” Or this, from Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”