The Big "No"

Not the book update I was hoping to share...

Sometimes things work out just the way you hope they will. When that happens, it’s awesome, isn’t it?

And sometimes, you’re sitting alone on a Monday evening in a Starbucks on Staten Island, having just paid $4.30 for a mint tea so that you wouldn’t feel guilty for using the bathroom and wifi, and you open the email you’ve been waiting for, and your greatest professional dream, toward which you have been working for years, comes crashing down as your eyes skim the words for a “yes” or a “no” and find a “no.”

Or, verbatim:

“I am very sorry to say that we will not be moving forward with an acquisition.”

I could practically feel my heart break.

Fuck. FUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK.

I started crying as I texted my husband, my mom, my best friends.

It’s a no.

They said no.

They rejected my manuscript.

I needed to share the news, to hand some of the crushing weight of this rejection over to the people who love me most. Each text I wrote felt like its own battle in my brain as the negative self-talk reared up—

“Of course it’s a no. Why did you ever think that this would happen for you? Of course your book is not good enough. This was always too good to be true. You are not going to be a writer. You are not good enough.”

—and I had to rally to meet each barrage with self-compassion:

“If they don’t want it, they are not the right fit for you. However this book gets out into the world, you wrote a book, and that is an incredible achievement. This book is GOOD, and it deserves to be out in the world. You can do hard things. You will make this happen.”

Soon I was crying too hard to be in public, so I walked back to my car, which is parked alongside the turf field where my daughter is at her flag football practice.

I sat in the driver’s seat, and I sobbed. I texted a bit more with my friends, who of course were wonderful and kind. My husband called, and I cried more, and he was supportive and kind. I soaked up the kindness as my tears soaked tissue after tissue.

I took a few selfies because I wanted to document the anguish. I let it hurt. And it did. It hurt so fucking badly.

It hurts so fucking badly.

I don’t know what is going to happen with my book. I don’t know how it is going to make its way into the world. I do know now, finally, after months of back and forth, and multiple rounds of editing, that the one way this book will not make its way into the world is with the publishing house that—until about an hour ago—I believed, hoped, dreamed was my book’s destined home.

But that door is closed now. I have to move forward, forge a different path, on my own.

I feel like a loser. I feel stupid, overly trusting, gullible, silly, weak.

I feel devastated. I feel so deeply fucking disappointed and sad.

The sun is setting on Staten Island. I look to my left, out my car window, and see my 13-year-old daughter throwing passes to her teammates. My daughter recently decided to join this flag football team on Staten Island, even though we live well over an hour away (and have to take two bridges and two tunnels to get to her practice), because it’s one of the top programs in the entire country. Because she believes in herself. She believes that she will go far in this sport. She believes she deserves the best. She is passionate and driven to play this game that challenges her and brings her joy even though it’s hard and the competition is fierce.

And I think: I want to be like her.

And: I want to show her that I am not going to give up on my dream, so that she will never give up on hers.

I want to stay brave. I want to keep going. I want to do whatever I have to do to get my book out into the world.

That is going to include navigating this grief. I’ll likely cry some more. I’ll probably be feeling pretty low for awhile. I’ll have to keep battling all the self-doubt and negative self-talk that this rejection has emboldened.

So I will. I will keep going. I will not give up.

And someday, I will smile when I recall the moment I sat in that Staten Island Starbucks and received the news that changed my life.

And I will feel so grateful that things worked out just the way they did.