Dealing with Disappointment

As some of my Facebook friends know, yesterday I received a heavy blow as a writer. For the past two years I’ve been working on a memoir with a noted actress from the Golden Age of Hollywood. It’s been a pet project of mine in many ways.

First of all, I really don’t care much for what Hollywood puts out these days. Most of the movies I watch are those on TCM. I miss the movies of Frank Capra and starring people like Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Mickey Rooney. (Have you ever seen Mickey Rooney’s performance in “The Human Comedy”? He deserved an Oscar!).

Second, I’ve always wanted to help someone famous write his or her story. I still do, in fact.

Third, knowing what I did about the actress in question, I knew I would enjoy the story itself.

Fourth—and perhaps it should be my first consideration–this actress has had an inspiring life. She is an active Christian and her faith is an integral part of her life’s story. That made the book we would write all the more exciting.

And so two years ago I began the project with a trip to Beverly Hills for my first interview session. It went well and I returned a few months later for the second interview. It too went well. A nice proposal and sample chapters were the result. Admittedly, during this time my subject expressed some reservations about a book. She is a private person—retired from acting of course—and a book was never something she desired to write. Still, we moved ahead.

One thing I had not anticipated, but should have, is that many editors are too young to remember Hollywood in its Golden Age. So in response to some of my queries, I received the message that she was not well enough known. That’s really not true—at least to two generations of book buyers. I’ve seen books by other stars of her magnitude—Esther Williams and Maureen O’Hara to cite two—do well in the market. In addition, this actress has a very active website and still makes an occasional appearance as a guest on TBN.

The result was that I collected a few rejections for the project and more than once my subject and I reworked the proposed manuscript. In fact, two editors had recently agreed to look at the new proposal when the call came yesterday that my subject had changed her mind about the book altogether.

She explained her reasons and I understood and accepted her explanation. In fact, I felt relief in a sad sort of way. This book was number one on my list of projects and as such it took a lot of emotional and creative energy. To have it gone will allow me to invest that energy in some of the other fifty-plus projects on my list.

Here’s my take away for my fellow writers:

* We all know that rejection slips (or actually rejection e-mails these days) are a part of the process. They hurt, but we learn to get past them and move on. But what we experience more rarely (or at least I hope more rarely) are those huge pet projects in which we invest a lot of time and energy and which end up unpublished for one reason or another. Those too, we must learn to handle with grace and acceptance. If prayer is part of your writing life, you understand that God is ultimately the one in control of your success as a writer. When, for whatever reason, God closes the door on a pet project, we just have to know that this is for the best. We also need to have the courage to leave a door closed that has been shut by God. As recently as this morning I was conniving a way to bring this back to life. That was wrong–and God reminded me that it was wrong. What He closes can only be reopened by Him. I do not expect that to happen in this case.

* A hard fact I’ve learned more than once is that if someone or some subject matter is not on the personal radar screen of the editor who sees the project, they will likely dismiss it, assuming wrongly that if it’s not on their radar screen it must not be on the radar screen of much of the book-buying public. This is so short-sighted. I could blog about this one thing and really get up a good head of steam…but I won’t. Just know that this is one of the obstacles you face—finding an editor who can look beyond his or her own line of vision and see what you see. (And yes, your proposal must attempt to do that).

* Consider these large failures as learning experiences. Hopefully you will have enjoyed the time invested and will also have gained some valuable knowledge. In my case, I loved every minute I spent on this pet project. I had those two wonderful trips to Beverly Hills. I heard stories about Hitchcock, Selznick, Bob Hope, and others. It was truly an experience I’ll never forget. A special bonus is that my subject and I are parting friends. I hope to visit her again someday.

* Also, one thing I did about halfway through the process—and that I recommend you do if you’re ever in a similar situation—was to ask my subject for a letter of reference. She gave me a beautiful reference for my work on her book and I will be sending that out to my next potential subject. One additional reward from working on this book was that I discovered I enjoy writing another person’s story. So now I will move on and approach someone else. The question now is who will that be? 🙂