What’s become of the broken-hearted?

We’ve all been there. Dumped. Rejected.  Sobbing into the supportive arms of a boyfriend pillow.

My heartache did not come from a boy. Pfft, boys.  I’ve had bad romantic break-ups, sure. They’re quite normal for me, actually. I got over them.  I’ve never experienced a break-up that was truly soul-shattering. A new haircut, a box of Cadbury Snack, and a flirting session with a cute barista usually took the sting out of being dumped.

It wasn’t a boy that sliced and diced my heart with a blunt-edged ginsu knife. It was a literary agent.  Ok, it was SEVERAL literary agents. My life’s one great heartache came at the expense of the publishing industry, that fickle, fickle bitch.  I tried so hard to capture their attention, but soon realized that all of New York’s literary elite were just not that into me.

And once my hopes and dreams were a mush of soggy julienne fries, I put my literary ambitions aside, and tried to get on with Normal Life.

It took a decade to get back up on that horse again. And that horse was stinky, bad-tempered, and lousy with flies.

I’ve been writing since I was a kid.  My first story was a comic book about my cat. Inspired by the genius that was Sweet Valley High, I later went on to write a series about a middle school rock band.  I typed these up on my sister’s typewriter, writing in all caps, and I even designed the covers.

Guess who is the villainess? HINT: The one with the whorish make-up.

When I was sixteen, I started my own version of the Great American novel, and for eight years I wrote and polished that damn thing until it sparkled like a Cullen.  I wrote other things too-angsty short stories, terrible screenplays for my film classes, snarky newspaper articles. My novel was my first love though. I brought it to writing classes, and when we took turns reading aloud, my heart nearly burst from my chest every time someone laughed, or said “awww” or responded in any way to what I had written.  Friends came and went, but none would be as dear to me as my own lost Lisa.  Boys too, a bit more frequently, but those poor schmucks couldn’t compete with my sarcastic Erik.

There was one boy who seemed to realize how important these characters were to me.  On our first valentine’s day together, he eschewed the traditional flowers and chocolate and instead gave me a leather bound, printed copy of my novel.

No surprise, that boy is now my husband.

When I sent my baby out into the world. I did all the right things. I joined critique groups. I researched the market. I targeted specific agents.  So when the rejections started pouring in, form rejections mind you, with maybe one or two personal notes, I was mystified.  And so completely devastated.

Looking back, the project was so not ready for Primetime, but I wouldn’t admit that. I crawled back into my fortress of solitude to lick my wounds. I threw myself into my career…er, careers. Though I tried to make a go of it in TV…and Radio…and Advertising…and Publishing…and Real Estate…I never really found my niche.  All I’d ever wanted to be was a writer. I wasn’t good at anything else.

I got married and had a couple of kids, and finally found something I was good at.

I make some damn cute babies.

Not as portable as a hardcover book, and also very slobbery.

Despite my best efforts, the urge to write didn’t stop.  I moderated a writing community on livejournal, and took a part-time job in a library, where I got to read, and recommend, lots of YA Fiction. I started new projects, and rehashed old ones, but they weren’t real, serious attempts.

It’s hard to be serious about anything when you have to deal with a wailing baby, a cat that likes to vomit in the fruit bowl, and a toddler who thinks it’s funny to paste bologna slices to the living room wall.

The kids got older, a bit more self-sufficient, and I was able carve out daily writing time. Over the past year I’ve completed two projects, one humorous adult fiction, the other the first in a YA series, a very different one from Hillside Jr. High, thankfully.

Today I start querying agents.  There’s a good chance I’ll be rejected again. I’m older and wiser now, though, and a rejection isn’t going to incapacitate me this time.  If this project doesn’t work out, I’ll move on to the next one.  Maybe I’ll serialize it as a web-series. Maybe I’ll tuck it away until my kids are old enough to enjoy it.  I have options now, and a life outside my writing. The world will not end with a form rejection letter.

It may tilt a little, but it’s not going to end.