Author: Scott Andrews

Rejections Are Like Buses

I spent most of yesterday feeling pretty sorry for myself.  After spending a great deal of time beavering away on my novel, all I had to show from 3 submissions was 1 rejection which informed me that my submission was not suitable.  Inevitably I spent the vast majority of the day desperately over analysing the curt response which I had received.  The only conclusion which I could arrive at was that it was clear that my novel is rubbish.

By the time I returned home, thoroughly defeated and deflated, I was able to put my feelings to the back of my mind.  From time to time cooking is massively therapeutic to me and I soon found myself suitably sedated by the waft of my Jack Daniels glaze drifting up from the pieces of deceased bovine which sat in my griddle pan.  I sat myself down in front of my laptop, glass of red wine one side, my steak sandwich the other and instantly noticed that I had mail.  When I opened it I was stunned to find my 2nd rejection of the day.

The reason I am rambling slightly and providing far too many details is to try to get my point across.  I had managed to find an inner calm which would have made the buddha jealous.  I felt nothing,  I found myself grinning like an idiot, yet expecting the worse.  It was one of those moments where you can only laugh at what a son of bitch life can be sometimes.

When I read the email I was stunned.  Indeed it was a rejection, and it made me smile.  The reason was that it was something more than a generic thanks but no thanks.  It was personalised, it was encouraging and most importantly of all it felt honest.  Whether it was or not I shall never know as I don’t expect that I will ever meet the person behind it.

As the owner of an exceedingly obsessive mind I cannot pretend I haven’t combed over every word trying to find meaning where there is none.  What makes it ever harder is that I am a natural pessimist.  Despite that, the 2nd rejection has somewhat calmed me.  An experience is the sum total of what a person takes from it.  I am trying to take it at face value.

I will continue with my plan and I will send it to the next agency on my list.  In the meantime I shall finish my current project.  When I started the submission process I promised to give it 18 months.  It’s only been 3.  I am sure I will be just fine.  If only I could borrow the buddha’s patience for a little while.

Living Up To The Name

This post was written early yesterday afternoon.  I didn’t post it yesterday as when I returned home I had yet another rejection waiting for me which has since changed my thinking slightly.  I shall explain everything in my next post.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that I am now officially a literary failure.  This morning I received my first rejection on the grounds that my material wasn’t suitable for the agency in question.

Since I first submitted my manuscript I have been filled with apprehension regarding how exactly I would feel upon receiving my first rejection.  Honestly its a peculiar mixture.  On one hand I appreciate the fact that someone somewhere read my submission despite the fact they clearly didn’t like it.  The other part of me is disappointed and being somewhat of a drama queen by telling me that I am wasting my time and that I should try my hand at something achievable like alcoholism.

The fact is that it is at least forcing me to contemplate my next step.  Right now I don’t know whether to push on with my original plan, rewrite or burn my manuscript and resolve myself to join the faceless brigade of those who are merely waiting to die.  At least in the short-term my commitment to NaNoWriMo means that my hands are tied until the end of the month.

A man’s true character can be recognised when you observe him in the face of rejection, when no hope of salvation or redemption is in plain sight.  Those who flee we deem cowards, those who remain steadfast in their convictions, we brand crazy.  I suspect I am a little of both.

The Week That Was

I am continuing to beaver away on my novel, so much so that I haven’t had a great amount of time to post anything here.  Therefore this will merely be a small update plus a few words about remembrance day.

I have now passed 22,000 words and am certain to make 25k and quite probably 30k.  The story is progressing well, it is undoubtedly the saddest thing I have ever written.  That doesn’t mean its short of laughs or incredibly depressing.  The whole premise of the novel only works if I can make the reader feel an emotional attachment to the main character.  So far I believe I have done that.  The biggest worry is that I feel like the pace of the story has dropped.  Obviously I can try to rectify it at a later date.  It’s just strange to keep forcing yourself forward.  Since I typed my first word I have banned myself from deleting anything which isn’t in the sentence I am writing.  Therefore I am certain that at times I must have page after page of nonsense.  Nonetheless I shall keep moving forward.

Nowadays it seems that no remembrance day can go by without a protest and a counter protest and a counter-counter protest.  A large number of idiots in the world seem intent on politicizing a day which is meant to be about dignity and respect.  Participating in remembrance day has absolutely nothing to do with the righteousness of any given war it is about remembering those who have given their lives in defence or in an attempt to better the lives of others.  It saddens me to see the number of 21st century digital soldiers who are idiotic enough to believe that slandering the memory of the men who marched through hell on our behalf is okay.  These i-phone loving, kindle reading, latte-sipping, nike-wearing, shit-talking, soul-less cowards are the evidence that somewhere down the line we, the human race have got it massively wrong.

35,000 Words To Go

Today I passed the 15,o00 word mark and must confess that first time I can see problems looming on the horizon.   Perhaps I was slightly naive in believing that I could free write my way to 50,000 words using a concept I refused to develop before starting.  I wanted the evolution to be natural and unfortunately I am starting to suspect that I won’t make the 30,000 word mark using this idea as it stands.

For the first time I have sat down and actually tried to plot my story line in part to help me maintain a clear direction and also to help me roughly estimate how many words I can pull from this concept.  I do not want to pointlessly pad out the plot as  that would deem the last 9 days as a waste.  My plan of action for now is to write the remainder of the story and then worry after.

In the last post I declared that I wouldn’t read the novel until the 1st of December.  Unfortunately that is now clearly impossible and incredibly unrealistic.  In hindsight I can think of a number of places where I could add new scenes which would add something to the story quite naturally.  The irritating fact is that I have very specifically tried to write a pacey, punchy manuscript and I am certain that when it comes to writing additional scenes I am  sure to disrupt the flow.  Nevertheless I shall cross that bridge when I come to it.

In the meantime my better half has started to read through what I have already written.  Her first impression is that this is the clearest and most focused story I have written.  The best news is that the major twist on which the whole plot depends, caught her completely unaware.  Her opinion means a great deal to me, although I know she is too lovely to ever tell me get a grip, give up and get a life.  Which means one of two things, either we are both completely crazy or I am a very lucky man indeed.

It Takes All Saints

The kind of All Saints I prefer

The Solemnity of All Saints day is a day of many aliases including All Saints Day, All Hallows or Hallowmas.  Irrespective of which label you choose to refer to it by, it is arguably one of the most peculiar days in the Christian calendar.

During  seven years living in Poland I have always refused to participate in what at home we refer to as ‘the Day of the Dead’ for a number of reasons.  First and foremost is the fact that I am not a Catholic, therefore I knew I would feel out-of-place.  The second reason is that graveyards are not happy places.  The idea of willfully spending a day traipsing round cemeteries was something which I could never see myself doing as I have never seen any intrinsic value in mourning.

This year was markedly different as for the first time I would have someone I knew to visit.  In my mind I steeled myself for what I perceived to be a difficult day.  All I knew about All Saints day was that this is when Poles visit graveyards to pay respect to the deceased.  That the day itself was at the least traditionally important as well as being some kind of holy day.  I was warned to expect large numbers of people, that the graves would be covered in lighted candles and that the cemeteries in the evening would be a picturesque scene of beauty and tranquility.

How wrong was I?  What I did witness was an industry at large.  People queuing up like Lemmings to purchase candles and flowers.  Whole families meeting beside graves producing improbably larger and larger candles.  The stench of a thousand flowers mixed together with the stench of melting wax only served to unsettle my stomach.  The graves looked more like Mediterranean dining tables than burial sites.  The number of candles and flowers were a grotesque reminder that any semblance of solitude or dignity were nowhere to be seen, the only thing missing were cheap checkered table cloths.  In fact it was more like some kind of social meeting than any attempt at genuine remembrance.

Unsurprisingly when I made my observations audible, I certainly didn’t make any friends.  Poles as people are incredibly defensive of their nation and its traditions, irrespective of how meaningful these traditions actually are.  It was with a growing sense of frustration that I decided to investigate precisely where  this specific tradition comes from.

The typical point for any investigation in the 21st century is very often Wikipedia, which defined All Saints Day as follows:-

‘In Western Christian theology, the day commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven. It is a national holiday in many historically Catholic countries.’

Which means that All Saints Day is not a day traditionally reserved for mourning the dead, rather it is a day for commemorating saints.  In the case of the Catholic church, which incidentally has beautified over 10,000 saints(there is no exact head count)which makes for an extremely busy day for a Catholic.  It is a Holy Day of Obligation which in turn means that traditionalist or not every Catholic should attend a mass on All Saints Day.  All of this information begs the question, why is it that in Poland people associate Hallowmas with a day of remembrance for loved ones?

Oddly enough the tradition of remembering loved ones on the 1st of November can be found in Protestantism, Methodism and Lutheranism.  In the fore mentioned cases it is more directly connected to the belief that all human beings are saints for marginally different reasons.  What makes it stranger is that Poland is among a number of countries which have adapted the meaning of All Saints Day for reasons I have not being able to uncover.

Merriam-Webster defines a tradition as an inherited, established or customary pattern of thought, action or behaviour.  In that respect  All Saints day fits the bill.  The troubling aspect of many a tradition is that often the tradition remains but the meaning fades or changes.  A tradition without meaning is little more than a reflexive knee-jerk to a calendar date, as valuable as Valentines Day or Pancake Day.