Broken Wings

I finished my book.  Yup.  Completely finished.  After two years of sitting on the idea.  After a two-year long writing block, the plot finally came to me and it gushed out on paper over a span of 6 weeks.  It felt like labor; like giving birth to something beautiful, something beyond me.

I thought I was done.  But, like giving birth, it was just the beginning.  When you're done giving birth, you think you've completed the hard work.  "Wow, that's a relief," you think.  No more carrying this extra weight around.  No more swollen ankles and feet.  No more heartburn and nausea.  Chile, I'm done.  But, of course, you are not.  Because now begins the work of tending to your bundle of joy.  And as any new mother will tell you, there is nothing joyful about a bundle that cries and poops 24 hours a day.  Sure, you adore that child, but when you're sleep deprived and losing your sense of hearing from the screeching, you think, "I didn't know it would be so hard."

And so, here I am -- weeks after I completed my book -- and I haven't found a home for it.  The inquiries, the query letters, the "help a sista out" e-mails to all my friends are wearing down my optimism.  I can see the beauty in my book -- just like you feel that overwhelming love for your sleeping child -- but now I don't know where to go or what to do to get to the next step.  I know about John Grisham and his fifty rejections; and how JK Rowling's "Harry Potter" got turned down more times than she could recall.  I don't want that.  I don't want to be the woman talking about "it took me 75 tries before I sold my book."  I want to be the exception to the rule.  I want to be the heifer you love to hate who's like, "girl, please, I sent my book out and it got snatched up immediately."  :-)

I was speaking to one of the defense attorneys that my company employs a few days ago.  He's a frustrated rocker.  He is in a rock band and they play at attorney parties.  The thing is that he is really good; I would even say he's excellent.  But he cannot expand his view beyond the limits of what he currently has.  When I told him about my book, he offered to get me in touch with an attorney friend of his who has contacts in the Publishing industry.  As he imparted this wonderful bit of news, however, he warns me not to get my hopes up.  In fact, he tells me a story about how, 20 years ago, he wrote a song and played it in a singing contest.  A well-known actor/singer happened to be in the audience and asked him for permission to sing his song at an entertainment industry event.  He granted the permission, but -- for whatever reason -- the actor/singer never sang the song and the attorney's dreams crashed and burned.  The last thing he told me was, "there are no happy endings, so better not get your hopes up."

I got what he was telling me, but I felt compelled to ask, "did you ever try again?"  "Did you join other contests?"  "Did you approach other people?"  The answers were "no," "no" and "no."

It occurs to me that there are so many people out there with broken wings.  They dreamed a dream many years ago, nothing happened, so they are afraid to dream anymore. 

The thing is that there ARE happy endings.  John Grisham DID get published.  JK Rowling was able to sell "Harry Potter."  Even Jennifer Lopez is no longer Jenny from the Block; she is now Jenny from Beverly Hills and Star Island and Long Island.

I don't want to have a broken wing anymore.  And my crying, pooping baby?  He is going to be six in 10 days and is the calmest child I have yet to lay eyes on.  So, no matter how bad things seem at the outset, nothing lasts forever.