Taking a Mile

In the two weeks leading up to the end of 2008, I made it a priority to contact writers and send back material we had decided to pass on. I was so intent on this purpose that I actually forged my boss's signature (with his permission). I also got back to all the people who sent in unsolicited material. Unsolicited material consists of books, pitches, screenplays, treatments, articles, blogs, and/or all of the above that spunky can-do'ers send in with the hopes that I will lift them out of obscurity and make them a household name. These optimistic folks usually get a letter from me that states something like, "unfortunately, we've decided to pass. Also, any future material must be sent to us through a licensed agent or entertainment lawyer. In this time of increased litigation...blahblahblah." I've been crushing people with my reject letters for the past eight years now, and usually I don't really care. I'm more annoyed by the excess work than sympathetic to the obscure writer's plight. But every once in awhile, someone will get to me.

Around September of last year, my boss-of-the-forged-signature got an unsolicited letter from a woman I'm going to call Lily. Lily wrote that a long time ago she had made a pact with her son that if he pursued his dream of getting a degree, she would pursue her dream of becoming a published writer. And while he went on to get his degree, she never finished her novel. Well, recently she had had a heart attack, and realizing that time was a-wasting, she sat down and popped out a book. Now, she couldn't get anyone in the publishing world to look at her lovingly little, dramatic, family story, but she was hoping that maybe it would work for my franchise, ye of the lovely little, dramatic, family TV movies. She stated that she was "older than Grandma Moses" but she was still alive and that had to count for something. Well! Don't I love a plucky grandma! And aren't I sucker for a "better late than never" story? So, even though I knew -- KNEW -- that the book was going to be bad, I just couldn't crush this woman's last, dying hope. So, I wrote a letter that said that while I couldn't promise anything, and while it definitely was a long shot, I would take a look at the first fifty pages of her 389 page manuscript, and would you please sign this release form while you're at it? In comes the first fifty pages with a signed release form, and just skimming it, I could tell it was more than just a long shot. It was long on sentimental exposition and short on drama, character, and plot. However, I couldn't just dismiss it. I felt I needed to really read it and give a thoughtful and measured response. So, it sat on my desk for a couple of months.

As the end of the year approached, we were in production on three movies and I was scheduled to leave early for Connecticut. With my determination to come back to a clean slate, I handed over a pile of my unsolicited material including Lily's fifty pages to the receptionist (who, poor thing, acts as my assistant at times) and asked her to read them. If she felt there was anything there worth my attention, please let me know. However, if she felt they were safe "passes" then she could pass in my name with our standard reply. I specifically pointed out Lily's pages, explained the story to her and told the receptionist that I would appreciate it if she would give Lily more than just the form letter. To try to be cheerful and encouraging but firm.

When I arrived back at the office after the holidays, I saw copies of the reject letters the receptionist sent out in my stead. The letter to Lily was a little more curt than measured, relying a tad more on the standard response than I would have liked, but -- hey -- as Great Grandma used to say, "if you want it done the way you want it done then do it yourself." No one likes a micro manager. I was appreciative of the help, and the letter wasn't rude, so there was nothing I could say except, "Thanks for doing that for me."

Today, I get a letter and right away, I see it's the same typed envelope that had appeared in my office twice before. Sure enough, Lily was writing again. Sigh. I knew that this meant one of three things: (1) She was going to yell at me for getting her hopes up then dashing them cruelly. (2) She was going to say that she noticed that the first letter was written one way with one signature and the second letter was written in another style with a different signature...and yell at me. (3) She was going to plead with me to give her another shot. (Or 4: She could thank me but in eight years of rejection letter writing I have never gotten a "thank you for your time.") I took the letter up front to the receptionist and asked her to read it for me because, yeah, I'm a wuss. The receptionist scanned the letter while I scanned her facial expression for some kind of clue. She seemed puzzled. When she told me that Lily wasn't yelling at me, I felt safe in reading the letter myself. It seems that Lily was confused about the wording of the reject letter. She had sent four chapters to my attention but the reject letter stated that I was "enclosing your [rejected] chapter." Singular. Did I get all four chapters? The receptionist assured me that not only did she read all fifty pages but she posted all fifty back to Lily. So now the receptionist was afraid that she had done something wrong. I assured her that she didn't, that Lily was just elderly and hopeful, and the hope was getting in the way of the evidence. The purpose of this letter was to make sure I didn't blithely dismiss her writing because this was a #3 letter. Please give me another chance.

While I like getting things off my desk, I find reject letter writing distasteful. Other editors/producers have told me that I'm performing a valuable service. First of all, the writer would rather get a "no thank you" than no reply at all. Secondly, if the person is a bad writer than they need to know that and the only way they'll figure it out is if they get enough rejection slips to wallpaper their home three times over. I don't believe any of it. Mostly because all writers have heard stories about other writers who hadn't given up and what about JK Rowling?However, I feel I must divulge that there are categories of rejection. There are the "you are a bad writer so I'm passing" rejections and there are the "you're not a bad writer, you're just (a) cliche/wordy/boring (b) you defy all and any category, or (c) not right for this particular brand" rejections. However all rejections get clumped into the "you suck" category. Trust me. I know. I'm a writer. Hence the blog. Anyway, I hate getting a response to the rejection letters I write -- or ask others to write for me -- because I feel guilty about rejecting them in the first place. And any letter that I might write back to the person will have to clarify which kind of rejection it really is. Writers feel like you're not getting them. So you have to tell them, "Yes, I did get it." They want to make sure you understood their artistry. "No, I did not think that the three paragraphs devoted to the shadows the fir trees cast was poetic." They think that, if you would just read the entire manuscript from page one to 398, you'll get the whole picture because how could you possibly know what sort of genius they are with only 50 pages? That's not nearly enough! "No, I will not read the whole manuscript with the off chance that 250 pages in, I will stumble across an interesting plot point." At which point, the truth will out. I will have to tell you whether I'm passing because you're cliche or too windy, or if you just plain suck. And no one wants that. Lest of all the writer.

Am I going to answer Lily? There's part of me that feels that I should just letting the sleeping dog lie. But then there's another part of me that says, "She's old, you need to clarify for her that it was a typo and write her the reject letter you meant to write her to begin with." So, I probably will. Because that's the kind of girl I am. Nice. Regardless of my reputation with spunky can-do'ers and what any of your writers may think after reading this post.

My Library

When I was a little girl, I always pictured myself living in a large white Victorian house in the center of some Norman Rockwell New England town. In this fantasy, I had a garden in which I would prune and weed while dressed in a straw bonnet and a library, dark with cheery wood shelves. Something that looked like it came out of My Fair Lady (two floors with a wrought iron spiralling staircase? Yes, please!). My intention for this library was to own collector's titles -- first editions of Dickens, et. al -- and autographed copies of modern authors. My shrewd eye would help me divine who would be the Hemingway of tomorrow even though I didn't really like Hemingway to begin with. And all the other shelves would be filled with titles I had read. I would lend these books to friends and family members. Quite like the public library. However, ever the practical child, I knew that I would have to start this collection right away as it would require a lot of money and time. So I did. Babysitting duties started around the age of 11 and all my cash was poured into making book purchases usually from the best seller shelves at Caldor. I loved these books. I read them and re-read them and felt good about myself for being so well-read. I didn't realize that a best seller didn't necessarily mean good literature. I only knew that other people said they were good and, well, I liked them, so I bought with zeal.

By the time I moved to New York, I had approximately six boxes filled with hardcover books. Maybe more. Mostly from the Doubleday book club and mostly commercial fiction. The books not from the book club or commercial fiction were classical novels with faux leather covers usually bought on the cheap from Barnes & Noble. Once I got into publishing, however, and -- one step further -- started working at Barnes & Noble in Union Square, my literary tastes expanded. At the time, I would probably have said that my literary tastes "improved" because now I was running with the New York literati who knew that Julie Garwood was a romance novelist and not a serious writer and would flinch when I would admit that I had read her entire canon while I still hadn't gotten around to picking up Trollope. I learned to shut my mouth about my romance predilection and hide the bodice rippers under my pillow at home, while I carried around the latest copy of Philip Roth. And, of course, I collected more books. Lots more books. First edition copies of books that won Pulitzers and Mann Bookers and autographed copies from authors I -- or others -- admired. (And in one case, an autographed copy of a first edition Pulitzer winner from an author I admired. Score!) A friend of mine gave me a few bookshelves and quickly they were filled to capacity so I stored more books at my office. By the time I left New York, I had easily filled ten boxes. the weekend I was scheduled to move out, my sister and I sat in the middle of my living room on 33rd Street while I went through every title, deciding which ones I couldn't possibly part with and which ones I could. By the end of the process, five boxes made the cut to go to Connecticut to join the rest of the "library" while five boxes went to the Strand.

Back in Connecticut, I pulled out those first six boxes. But now I was embarrassed by those teenage purchases and started to go through those titles exorcising my more pedestrian choices. Goodbye Nora Roberts, John Grisham, James Patterson, and Judith McNaught. By the time I finished with that process, I was down to a neat seven boxes.

This act of book shedding continues to this day. Except, each time, it's a different, random criteria for a title to make a cut. I assume that one day, I will be down to just my first editions and my signed copies which will probably be a slim two boxes. And while I haven't totally given up my fantasy of a big Victorian house in a Rockwellian town with a garden and a My Fair Lady library, I've come to a certain realization about myself: I'm really a transient with pedestrian tastes. Looking back over my life, that's always been the case and I don't really see how that's going to change in the next 35 years.

In L.A., I only have one bookcase. I am now swearing by the "one book in, one book out" rule of elimination. Meaning, for every book I buy or get, I have to make a decision as to which title gets the boot. Sometimes this works admirably. Other times, books will get stacked on top of other books so that they technically fit on the bookcase while not really fitting on the bookcase. Recently, I mailed three titles to a friend which felt karmically freeing. I'm buying less hardcovers and more paperbacks. And if I don't read something within a year, I determine whether I really still want to read it. No more storing for "later". It's not easy letting go of a childhood image of your life, but sometimes its necessary. Building castles in the sky is one thing, storing a multistory library in your mother's attic for that castle is something else.