This is a story I’ve waited a dozen years to tell.
But before I get to that story, let me go back a little further. It’s 1990. I’m a recent college graduate. The economy’s in a recession. I need a job. My degree’s in journalism and communications. Prospects aren’t great.
I accept a copywriting position at an invention-marketing company. Stop laughing and reread the preceding paragraph. I was desperate.
So many times during my experience there, I would think, “This will make such a great book someday.”
Well, that “someday” kept on getting pushed back, typically due to work (after I left the invention-marketing company, I landed a much better job), and then, at 33, I became a father, completely unaware as to how time-intensive parenting was.
I feared I would never get around to telling my tale. Eventually, though, my son started school, and, since I’ve worked from home since he was born, I finally found myself in possession of our greatest commodity – time.
It took me three years of Thursdays (typically a day off for me), but in late 2009, I completed my novel. To be honest, I initially viewed it as a private accomplishment, such as finishing a marathon or kicking a bad habit. But then I started looking into how someone gets a novel published, and I spent the next 12 years querying agents and publishers, with enough near misses along the way to sustain me.
Ah, the near misses. They’re heartbreaking, yes, but they made me realize I was on the right path and that I perhaps wasn’t pursuing a pipe dream. The first near miss came about nine months into the querying process. An agent asked to see the first 50 pages of my manuscript based off the query I had sent. (A novel’s query is essentially the “elevator pitch.”) A few days later, I received a phone call from the agent’s assistant, and she was gushing over my work and asked me to send the full manuscript.
A phone call from the agent’s assistant! This was it! It was really happening! Every time the phone rang, I was sure destiny was on the other side. Usually, though, it was my mother or brother or a robocall asking me if I knew my car’s warranty was about to expire.
Five months after the call I foolishly had convinced myself would be life-changing, I received an e-mail rejection from the agent. (“We like your work, but we don’t love it enough to champion it. Feel free to query any future projects…”)
This scene would play out several times over the next 10 years. And I understand it. Really, I do. Agents get inundated with queries, and my novel is comedic literary fiction, not an easy sell. Plus, I’ve learned that perhaps nothing is as subjective as humor. An agent once told me she found my humor dark and that it made her feel “more uncomfortable than amused,” which made me laugh. I mean, sure, maybe it’s occasionally darkish, and, sure, the story within the story features a homicidal (yet delightfully amusing) maniac, but I really did not set out to make a reader feel uncomfortable.
So, sure, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being frustrated at times, but I knew I would never give up. And I mean that sincerely. I would have queried till I was dead. Is it possible to put in one’s will directions for posthumous querying? If so, I would have done that, too.
Around 2018, for whatever reason, I started to get more requests for partials and fulls. And, finally, in early 2021, I received an e-mail with a subject line that said, “Offer of publication.”
And it took a mere 12 years.
I feel my work holds appeal to anyone who’s ever experienced a less-than-ideal workplace and can see the humor in such hopeless situations.
In addition, to this day, you still see TV advertisements for various invention-marketing firms. For folks who wonder, “Good heavens, who would fall for this?” I am the person to answer that question. I spent a little more than two years working for such a company. I’m not particularly proud of this, but I am the go-to person for all things invention-marketing-related.
Plus, I wouldn’t say it’s a coming-of-age story, but it does capture the essence of the awkward early 20s, when we’re adults…but not quite.
I’d like to thank this site for giving me a platform to express myself and get instant feedback. I joined in 2008 with the sole intention of discussing politics, but it dawned on me pretty quickly that I could also use it to help hone my communication skills. I remember back in the day when Kos would write his “hatemail-a-palooza” diaries on Saturday afternoons, featuring some of the hate mail he received the prior week. I would take a work break, hop on the site, and see how many goofball things I could say in half an hour. It was fun, sure, but I also saw it as a challenge.
All right, I’ve taken enough of your time. Now go buy my book! And thank you if you do. I really appreciate it.
It’s available on Amazon: Right here!
If you’re not an Amazon fan, it’s also available directly from the publisher: Right here!
And it will be available at bookshop.org, but it isn’t there yet.
And follow me on Instagram here if you want to see more pictures of my cats!