The Plot Thickens

Remember me sharing that after my novel was rejected, I received some helpful feedback from someone at the publishing company?

Well… that helpful someone was fired a week ago.

Now I admit it: until I heard the official reason, I assumed she was fired because my novel was just that bad and her superiors lost faith in her judgment because she dared waste her time trying to salvage my horrible manuscript.

Who knew rejection would wreak such paradoxical havoc on my ego?

Me? Not in the least!
Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Of course, my novel had nothing to do with her dismissal. The company is restructuring, nothing-personal-just-business … you know the drill.

But for those keeping score at home, her firing means the one person at the company with whom I had some semblance of a connection is gone. The one person who said anything other than “No” to my precious novel no longer works there.

Plunking me back at square one.

I could be disheartened by this news, and I am to a degree. People have lost jobs, after all. One of my Moo Sisters is no longer working with the editor of her first two books, and the other is unsure of her fate as she had only a verbal agreement for her novel.

(I say “only a verbal agreement” to distinguish it from an official contract. All writers know the significance of any agreement regarding their work, to say nothing of the officially arduous work my friend has put into her book on the strength of this unofficial agreement.)

Lastly this publishing house vetoed my novel once. Without this helpful editor in place, who’s to say it wouldn’t automatically decline a freshly-revised-though-previously-rejected novel?

And here we have the crucial question: Who’s to say what happens now? Who is the person who determines what happens now?

Hmm... I believe that would be I. 

(Yes, "that would be me" sounds better, but we know better than that. At least, we should.)

I am the creator of this novel, the captain of this revisionship. And it is on me to say what happens now.

Therefore I am to say the revisiting process is continuing as planned. I am to say although I do not control who works at the publishing house, I do control the quality of the product I resubmit. And I am to say the finished product will be the best work I have done to date.

Above all I am to say something good shall result from this company shake-up—for me, my Moo Sisters, those who lost their jobs, and anyone else affected. Because if I am to say anything, then it ought to be something worth hearing.