Having published my first novel, I have begun to understand the complex emotions of motherhood. In many ways THE GIRL IN THE GARDEN was like my baby. I created it, nurtured it, and loved it desperately. When I typed the last word, my joy was clouded by something akin to post-partum depression. Without my familiar manuscript to write, I was lost. When I sent it out into the world, where it would inevitably be tested, judged, and possibly rejected, I felt the intense anxiety of an overprotective mother dropping her child off on the first day of school.
While I was lucky enough to eventually find an agent and publisher, I stumbled, stalled, and lost my faith along the way. Part of what kept me going was hearing stories of rejection and redemption …of JK Rowling being fired from her secretarial job and turned down by 26 publishers; of Einstein being expelled from school for being slow; of Walt Disney being sacked for lacking imagination. Even though I consider myself somewhere on the first half of the ladder of success, I never would have made it past that first rung had it not been for these stories. I want to share my own in hopes that it will encourage someone else to stay hopeful and to persevere.
The path to publishing a novel is usually long and littered with obstacles. It’s a little like falling in love. THE GIRL IN THE GARDEN was rejected by a handful of agents before my now-agent left me a voicemail telling me she wanted to represent me. On that magical winter morning, as I stood shivering outside my office building, listening to her message, I could not have cared less about the string of rejections. All that mattered was that I had found The One. My agent had such great faith in me and my novel, something for which I will be forever grateful, that I didn’t worry too much about finding a publisher. Of course I would find one, I naively thought, the hard part was over. The day after my agent sent my manuscript out, an editor at a major publishing house called her to say she was in love with my book and wanted to buy it. I was overjoyed until a few days later when she called again to report that her boss had turned it down for not being commercial enough. A dam broke, and a series of rejections came flooding in, each one more devastating than the last.
Based on the feedback we received, my agent, and a few trusted readers, urged me to flesh out the story, and to explore my main character Rakhee’s adulthood. The original manuscript focused solely on one pivotal summer in Rakhee’s childhood, and ended at summer’s close, leaving my young heroine’s future uncertain. I needed to bring her story full-circle, to do right by my characters and by my readers. Although I had always envisioned the story being told by Rakhee as an adult looking back, the prospect of reworking a manuscript I had already slaved over and had felt so confident I had completed, was daunting.
I knew who adult Rakhee was, and I knew why she was telling this childhood story, but I didn’t know how to add this dimension to the novel without diminishing its strength. I went back to the drawing board, but nothing I wrote ever measured up to my vision. I was paralyzed. One day, I reached out to a friend, also a writer, in despair. I don’t have many writer friends, so I rely heavily on this particular friend for support and advice, and she never fails to coax me out of my creative ruts. On this day I sent her a g-chat telling her I wanted to give up. It was just too hard. She suggested that I try writing down Rakhee’s adult story exactly as it was in my head, without worrying about writing well or being poetic.
“But I don’t want to ruin the magic of the childhood story,” I said.
“Forget about the magic,” she shot back. “Who do you want Rakhee to be as an adult?”
“I want her to be a strong woman who overcame adversity but is still struggling with her pain.”
“So put that in there,” my friend advised. “Just write ‘I am strong and struggling with pain.’ Meaning for the first few drafts just free-associate and write all the things that you want her to be in a very direct way…just accept that the first ten drafts will be shitty.”
Receiving that permission to write a stack of shitty drafts was freeing. I took my friend’s advice and within a matter of days, everything became perfectly clear, and I was able to write, the words gushing forth, without getting in my own way.
“I think you’ve got it this time,” my agent said when I sent her the final product. She was right. Within a few days, she found a loving home for my novel, and I was on my way.
I look back on those rejections I endured with mixed feelings. They are like scars, bringing back memories of pain. But without them, I might have published a lesser book, and I would have missed out on the struggle that has ultimately made me a stronger writer. I need to remind myself every so often of my friend’s advice, and let myself be a bad writer. Whenever I falter, I ask myself why I’m so afraid. The answer is that part of me is terrified of embracing my fallibility. I can’t bring myself to take ownership of the embarrassing dribble I’ve produced on the page, even when I know it is a step in the right direction.
But what I’ve learned is that so much about good writing, and a good life, is having a sense of humor about ourselves, and accepting that we are flawed, that even Grace Kelly wasn’t always Grace Kelly. At some point we’re all idiots, and the sooner I learn to accept this and laugh at my inevitable moments of indignity, the closer I will be to creating a work I can proudly call my own.
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