Scribblers (19 page)

I give it to her on a Thursday or Friday and get it back first thing Monday morning.

“I started reading your manuscript and couldn't put it down,” she says in her written evaluation. “Your self-deprecation made me laugh out loud at points.” And later, “I know I'd be proud to publish this manuscript, but I think you might be doing yourself a disservice if you don't try to get a house that is better known for its literary publishing.”

She goes on to discuss in some detail one chapter in which the narrative voice isn't of a kind with the rest of the manuscript. This last point notwithstanding, her words are balm. Her offer to publish is deeply appreciated, but it is my dream to land with a major house, as she understands.

Fixing the problem she identified requires me to switch the order of two chapters and completely rework one of them, cutting six to eight pages of material and writing four of five pages of new. But I don't lack for incentive. A week's worth of late nights finish the job. I then show the manuscript to another coworker, who makes no mention of any inconsistency of narrative voice and who is, to my delight, even more complimentary in his evaluation than our boss.

I am thus ready to brave the wider waters.

One of our company's best recent successes was a risky first novel that bounced around New York before making its way to us. It sold modestly in hardcover for us but garnered superior reviews. Soon, our author had himself a major paperback contract and deals for translations into several languages. When the paperback came out, it got glowing notice in the
New York Times Book Review,
a nearly unheard-of coup for a reprint edition. By then, the author had a second manuscript, to which we held the right of first refusal. Of course, he'd priced himself out of our market by then, but we made a token offer so as to give him and his agent a floor from which to proceed. The author shortly won a two-book deal with a mega-house. It was an amicable parting. We were pleased to bask in his success, and he was grateful for the path we'd provided him.

I don't claim credit for any of this. The manuscript required some cleaning up, but by and large, it had come to us much as we published it. Before it was ever accepted, however, I recognized its merits and argued its case when not everyone on our staff was in agreement.

The upshot for me is that I have an easy entrée to a young agent on the rise. It is partly thanks to me that he now boasts a talented, ambitious author ripe for big things. Perhaps my name has been mentioned during the behind-the-scenes doings. If not, the agent still might be kindly disposed when I come forward with a manuscript of my own.

I ask my boss to run interference for me.

I don't know exactly what she writes the agent, beyond telling him of my years with the company and praising my manuscript and my writing and editing generally. But I am
privy to the agent's reply to her. In three dashed-off but nonetheless memorable lines, he declares himself both “thrilled” and “delighted” at the prospect of seeing my work, refers to me familiarly as “Steve K.,” and vows to read my stuff as quickly as he can upon its arrival.

Of course, I want to get the manuscript into his hands before his enthusiasm has a chance to wane. I spend a couple of fretful days in writing, rewriting, and re-rewriting a cover letter. The letter has to provide my contact information, establish my connection to the agent via our mutual author, describe my industry experience and editing credits, highlight my previous publications, and, most importantly, summarize, capture the essence of, and make irresistible the material I am presenting to him. And it has to do all this without a bragging tone in one artful single-spaced page.

Since I am providing him only half the manuscript I project, I synopsize the remainder of the book, promising insight, historical perspective, more than a little poignancy, and much hilarity.

When I'm ready to send my package, I don't leave it with the outgoing office mail but take it straight to the post office, where I don't drop it in an outside box or even slip it through the slot inside the building but deliver it directly to the care of the overfed man behind the counter.

I don't maneuver through traffic as much as I avoid objects hurtling toward my stationary position, as in an arcade game. My vision narrows to the hundred yards of pavement directly in front of me. My mind is drawn to
irrelevancies. People riding with me make frequent use of their imaginary brake pedal. Other motorists give me room.

My route lies along the heavily trafficked interstate that bisects town. I settle in behind a pickup pulling a trailer loaded with lawn equipment. The driver stretches to fumble in the glove compartment, and I remark something familiar in my glimpse of his profile. Mr. Epps? I nudge the gas pedal and move closer. One of my daughters took science from Epps—a man with sour breath and a pocketful of mechanical pencils, as I recall from open-house night. Things aren't so dire that teachers have to spend the summer mowing grass, are they?

I'm getting too close. He taps his brakes to back me off.

Suddenly, Epps—or whoever he is—exits right. The traffic in the left lane disperses. I hear the whoosh of air brakes behind me and take a glance in the mirror to discover a big truck shockingly tight on my bumper. It seems to be angry about something.

Going uphill now, the truck fades until it's a blister on the mirror and the sounds of its downshifting are as subtle as pangs of conscience. Downhill, it swings into the passing lane and closes the distance with frightening speed. It draws abreast at the bottom of the hill. For one brief moment, I look up into the face of the copilot—scornful, sunglassed, street-smart. The truck gains ground at a decreased rate. My car is opposite the middle of the trailer as the next hill steepens. Then the truck again falls behind me and moves back into the right-hand lane.

Downhill this time, the passing lane is repopulated by motorists comfortable in their knowledge that the beast has
singled out its prey. The truck can't swing wide. It stays tight on my bumper, its air brakes whooshing every few seconds. Unaccountably, I back off the throttle. The speedometer dips from fifty-three to fifty to forty-five and levels out at forty-two. The trucker lays into his air horn so long and loud that my head sinks protectively between my shoulders and the hair on my neck stands smartly. The truck has fallen back enough now that I can see they're flipping me the bird—both of them, with both hands each.

An exit ramp miraculously presents itself, and I throttle up and swing hard right. The truck hurtles past, its horn still blaring but mellowing like that of a train entering a tunnel.

For time immemorial, the central moment of the day for writers has been the arrival of the postman.

My wife gets home from work earlier than I do, so my habit is to call every afternoon beginning a week after I posted my manuscript. I understand that this is premature, as my package could hardly have gone to New York and been routed directly back in that length of time. Still, I have to inquire. In fact, I have my wife's homecomings so well timed that I usually catch her coming in the door, so she has to run for the phone to keep the answering machine from picking up. She's slightly breathless when she answers—irked, too.

“Anything come today?”

“Just bills and junk.”

Or “Did you get the mail on the way in?”

“I just dropped it on the kitchen table.”

“And?”

“I didn't see what you're looking for.”

Of course, I'm not looking for my return envelope back, as that would indicate a bad outcome. What I'm really expecting is a phone call at work. Even if the agent doesn't want to handle my manuscript, I suspect my writing is good enough and that I've banked sufficient industry coin to merit at least a courtesy conversation.

But I receive no word by mail or phone.

At work, I'm editing a book about the Trail of Tears of 1838, during which tens of thousands of Cherokees living mainly in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama were compelled to give up their homelands and undertake forced migrations to the West. United States soldiers under General Winfield Scott took to the countryside with rifles and bayonets, rounding up men in the fields, women in their homes, and children at play. They drove the Cherokees to stockades, where they were warehoused until enough of them could be gathered to comprise a “detachment” to Oklahoma, some twenty-two of which were organized in all. A great number of Cherokees died during the journey west, and many of those who made it to their unwanted new home arrived bereaved and hopeless.

Actually, I'm editing the editor, as the book is a compilation of firsthand accounts of the migration, for which the editor has provided a preface, a lengthy introduction, brief lead-ins to the various excerpts of source material, and all the necessary documentation.

Within two weeks, I finish the preface, the introduction, and most of the main text. Within a month, I complete
most of the grunt work—bibliography, endnotes, and such—which leaves me only to write the jacket copy and polish off some miscellaneous small tasks. Within six weeks, I am well into editing the next book in line, a guide to romantic sites in the Southeast.

It's my observation that if deals in the industry are going to be struck, things tend to progress quickly. If I haven't heard by now, then the news is bad.

I don't know that I've ever suffered what would qualify as depression, but I'm certainly not sowing much joy these days. At work, I'm less prone to idle talk; I stick to my office and actually get more done than usual. At home, I cease caring whether the kids pick up their stuff or do their homework; I am less inclined to anger but also immune to laughter. Blanketing everything is numbness and a feeling of worthlessness—or foolishness, maybe, for having squandered so much time, energy, and hope. I look forward all day to going to bed. I understand how weak and self-pitying I'm being.

Within two months, I am on the verge of finishing the romantic guide.

At ten weeks, I finally contact the agent by e-mail: “Did you receive a manuscript from me around May 1?”

I have a reply within the hour: No, he did not.

I don't doubt his truthfulness. Publishers and agents receive thousands of submissions per year, and some parcels are lost. More likely, a staffer opened my manuscript, didn't care much for it, and discarded it, not knowing the agent had agreed to review it himself.

Having committed myself to seeing the process through,
I change the date on my cover letter and send another copy of the manuscript, this time via one of the overnight carriers. But it is a foregone conclusion what will happen now. It's an unspoken rule in the business not to establish yourself as a pain in the ass by bugging people, even for so legitimate a reason as inquiring about your lost package. I'll get a prompt reply the second time around, and it will certainly be a rejection.

I e-mail the agent two weeks after sending my package to make sure he's gotten it.

Indeed he has, he e-mails me back. He says he has a considerable backlog of manuscripts but will get to mine as soon as he can.

Four days after that, the package is in my mailbox. My wife doesn't tell me but lets me find it when I get home. I've stopped calling and asking by then.

The agent begins by saying that, in his experience, editors aren't fond of narrative nonfiction by struggling writers who make getting published a central issue in their manuscripts. But even given the unpopularity of my subject matter, he'd take me on as a client if he found my writing engaging enough. Sadly, he didn't. He closes by recommending that I try small publishers, as he feels I might have a large niche market among the kind of fellow wannabes who fill the seats at writers' conferences.

I can't really argue with any of this. His remarks on manuscripts about struggling writers aren't what I expected—in fact, I figured my subject might be of special interest to people in the trade—but his experience with big-city editors trumps my uninformed hopes. His indifference
toward my writing is more damning. At the company where I work, people frequently call or write us after their manuscripts have been rejected. They tell us why their submissions should have been accepted; they question our judgment; they demand detailed critiques, with which they then take issue in further communications. But it's all pretty simple. Your stuff either works or it doesn't. I've never known editors to come to like a rejected manuscript because an author persuades them of its merit.

Having no cause for complaint, I drop the agent a line thanking him for his consideration.

One benefit of my long wait is that I'd had plenty of time to lay contingency plans. My second choice is an agent with whom I've enjoyed a telephone acquaintance for a couple of years. I edited a novel by a rather difficult author of hers, who spoke kindly of my efforts to the agent, at no bidding by me. Now, I contact the agent to ask if she'll consider representing me. She says she will, the only twist being that she wants to see not only my manuscript but the reviews of my first book as well. I have to go digging for the box where my clippings are yellowing. I try to remember if I might have overrepresented my success to the agent at some point. If so, it will come home to roost now. I have a couple of national reviews to offer, but most of it is local stuff.

My package goes out in early August. I figure I won't hear anything until after Labor Day, but I have it back a week before the holiday. The agent says she found my manuscript “hilarious and charming.” But since I have no celebrity status—which, she admits, is opposite my purpose—she
doubts she would be able to place my work. She feels I've also set myself a marketing challenge by focusing on the difficulties of the writer's life, since my potential audience figures to be more inclined toward messages of hope and inspiration.

I have in mind a couple other agents, then four or five editors to whom I might submit directly. But it's dawning on me—just as I learned years ago sending out short stories—that I don't have the temperament to wait through ten or twenty or thirty or forty rejections. My material would be so dated by that point that there'd be no point in picking it back up. And I can't see myself submitting to dozens of places simultaneously, like everyone else does. Receiving all those rejections en masse would play hell with me.