"If the sex scene doesn't make you want to do it - whatever it is they're doing - it hasn't been written right." -- I got this quote from Jenny Edwards' Blog Tales of a Rejection Queen www.rejectionqueen.blogspot.com She is soon to be a published author, and has shared her rejection letters on her blog. Her story of getting published is painfully familiar, and written with true tongue-in-cheek humor. Check her out when you have a moment.

Funny thing, rejection letters, especially those that come from agents and publishers. If any of you have ever tried to get a book published, then you understand what I mean. Okay, if you are J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Myer, then you probably don't understand, because fate had a different plan for you. But for the rest of the aspiring authors out there, you know what I mean. My personal favorite rejection letter came from an agent in New York who actually asked for a copy of my completed manuscript. Imagine how exciting that was! Wow! His rejection letter was quite polite. He told me what he loved about my book, and explained what he "just couldn't get into." The problem is, he wasn't talking about my book... or my characters. I'll probably never know which manuscript he read, or claimed to read, but I can rest assured it was not my novel.
Well, onward---ever onward. As long as there are voices in my head, and dreams that linger for days---until I immortalize them with my pen---I will continue to write on. Right on!

The Day I Stopped Writing

I was always a writer. As a small child I loved to write stories about imaginary people and places. Each room in my childhood home housed a different imaginary acquaintance. One was an overweight, dark-haired, middle-aged man who acted as my psychologist (yep, I was crazy from the beginning.) Another was a fair complexioned, lanky man in his mid thirties; he was my boss when I worked as a hospital administrator. My bedroom was a school—I was the teacher, and my room was filled with imaginary students for whom I created reading books, spelling books, and math books. I also wrote report cards for these invisible students and held parent/teacher conferences with their parents. Eventually I relocated the school to the outdoors in order to accommodate my growing number of pupils. My myriad of careers and colleagues did not end there. I also wrote shampoo and lotion commercials, Sunday school lessons, songs about finding myself, and poems about feeling lonely and misunderstood. I was all about the drama.

And all this before the age of twelve.

How could someone surrounded by so many imaginary people ever find herself lonely? Good question. I suppose because among all my mental conjurings, there was not to be found one true and honest friend—someone who really cared about my innermost thoughts and feelings.

That’s why I wrote. On paper, I spoke to a phantom audience of faithful friends that wanted to delve into the mysteries of my soul. Say hello to my own overactive id.

At nine, my mother bought me my first diary. It would be the first of several. There were no limits to what I would put down in writing—and if imbellishments or insanity would impress my audience of readers, then what the heck... I'd throw that in there too. But mostly, I wrote raw truths as I observed my world begin to expand--important stuff, like who said “hi” at school, what boys I thought were cute (ranked in order of priority of course,) my favorite songs, fears, frustrations with my parents—who could not possibly understand me—and my questions about God, religion, and life after death.

Surely somebody would want to know all those things about me, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t the people who really loved me NEED to know all the facets of my inner nucleus? Ah, the foolish beliefs of an adolescent girl—one who speaks to imaginary people.

Don't worry. It wouldn't take long for my bubble to burst.

I was twenty-two years old, when a very close friend of mine—a boy who I adored in the same way that one adores an old, faithful dog—asked me if he could read my journal. Wow. Imagine my pleasure and satisfaction to find someone interested enough in me to want to read my most personal, innermost thoughts and dreams. This surely would be true love in embryo!

As (let’s call him Adam just for fun,) Adam carefully peeled open my most recent collection of writings, I made myself comfortable and watched patiently from across the room. Adam read slowly at first, and then with each new page, his pace quickened. He was engrossed in my world of words and obviously captivated by the power of my pen.

Then Adam did something unexpected. He took a deep breath and sighed, closed my journal with decisive deliberation, and tossed it aside. I watched while the book slid across my cluttered coffee table. I stared first at the journal, and then focused on Adam who returned my gaze with subtle indifference. Then he muttered four words that I would never forget—four words that struck with such ferocious force that I found myself, perhaps for the first time ever, utterly and absolutely (don't those kind of mean the same thing?) speechless.

“Your journal is boring.”

The words completely derailed me. And in one instance my voice and my heart were silenced, and I laid down my pen, figuratively and literally.

That was the day I quit writing. June 1984. I sat thunderstruck and heartbroken in my seemingly inconsequential apartment, thoroughly convinced that not only was my writing worthless, but that I too, was of little value--after all, wasn't my writing just a reflection of everything that I was?

And so I arrived at the unequivical conclusion that I must never write again. Adam had become not only my accusor, but alas, also my judge and jury. Sentence passed.

And I didn’t. Not really. Not unless it was necessary to fulfill some required writing assignment. I made entries here and there in half-started journals, but they were of little note, sporadic at best.

In the years that followed, many important events occurred that would never find their place in my personal history. I married, had four children, experienced financial failure, lost my home in foreclosure, went through a tragic divorce, faced life as a single mom with no education, went back to school, became a teacher, remarried, earned a Master’s degree in education, and was named a middle school educator of the year.

And I wrote about none of it.

The emotions, joys, sufferings, challenges, trials, and triumphs remain buried in my memory, faded by time. Missing from my personal history are the simple things that make life wonderful, like holding your newborn baby for the first time, hearing their first words, watching them take their first steps and explore their surroundings. Also missing are the anxieties of sitting up all night with a sick child, standing by as they experience their first broken heart, and snarling when they sneak off in the middle of the night and total your car in a careless act of stupidity.

Four insignificant words when spoken separately. But in this order, “Your writing is boring,” they are anything but insignificant.

It would be twenty-five years before I would find the courage to risk rejection by picking up a pen and allowing myself to write again.

And write I did—not just a story, but a 500-page novel.

And write I will. There are stories both imaginary and true, swimming, hovering in my mind—voices that are itching to be heard, tales that demand to be told, and anecdotes that wish to be explored.

Perhaps one day I will search for Adam. I’m not sure what I will do once I find him—maybe I’ll punch him in the mouth. Or perhaps I’ll politely explain to him the harsh impact of his four thoughtless words. Or better yet (and this would be the greatest revenge ever,) I will simply hand him a copy of my #1 best selling novel.

I am many things. Boring is definitely not one of them.