My non-fiction proposal is with an acquisitions editor right now. A new publisher who deals with nonfiction, with the kind of story I tell in the Doris Diaries. I would gnaw my fingernails, if I was a nail-gnawing kind of gal. I’m not. I’m a harp-on-it-in-my-mind kind of gal. Harp on it until I have a meltdown. Which I just did. (Sorry, honey.)
Mind you, I did not “submit” this manuscript, and I’m not awaiting “acceptance” or “rejection.” I eschew those labels. No one owns my reaction. I know my work is good. Either they like it or they don’t. Nothing personal. And I’ll move on if this manuscript is not a fit. On to the next publisher on my checklist. Easy peasy.
But it gets a little grueling. My talented friend Mike Copperman submitted his collection of essays about teaching in rural Mississippi to some 125 agents and kept getting nos. He finally got a yes, and his book is forthcoming now (see his story here).
My gifted friend Jordan Rosenfeld wrote a whole book on persistence (called, amazingly, A Writer’s Guide to Persistence, out NOW from Writer’s Digest Books). She, too, has been plugging along in search of the right book with the right publisher, the right reader wanting what we have written.
I have been w
orking with my Great Aunt Doris’s diaries since summer of 2011, when I first opened the box of mysterious papers after her death, and realized what a treasure I held in my hands. I have published two collections of her diaries from the teen years in the Roaring Twenties. The things I know about the Prohibition era astound me. The lengths to which I’ve gone already in pursuit of sharing the Doris Diaries with the world – well, 5,000 miles by train, four states, three years, countless hours, and many speaking engagements, period costumes and hairdos later – well, now it’s time to move into World War II and Doris’s San Francisco years.
Will this be the right publisher? Is this the right time and place? I don’t know. I was promised a weekend read, so I have fingers crossed for a speedy answer this time. Trust me, you’ll know if there’s good news.
It never gets old, the thrill of the chase – the elusive unicorn in the woods. It gets very old, however, hearing no. So one day at a time. One page at a time. If you’re on this same journey, hang in there. We’ll go together.
Blow a dandelion with me and let’s see what happens.