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Liftoff

By Kellye Whitney

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I can’t believe it. After collecting a desk full of rejection letters from agents, not to mention the electronic refusals, someone finally wants to look at my work. A real agent. One who doesn’t charge a reading fee, has a good web site, and a cache of published authors that I respect. It was like someone scooted rain clouds from overhead and a big ole yellow sunbeam came down to warm me! I needed that warmth bad, too.

It’s soooo disheartening to be an aspiring novelist. Aspiring. Thhhppthhh! It sounds like expiring. Submitting your work is like putting on your favorite polka dot halter dress and peep-toe shoes, misting yourself in Chanel No. 5 only to step outside and have a cab douse you in muddy rainwater. Underneath you’re the same. You still have a big heart and a keen brain with an endless capacity for face making and funny quips, but you look terrible. Or, you look average, someone easy to pass by on the street. At least that’s what I think agents might feel when they read writers ' work. And I can sympathize.

I’m excellent at looking at different sides of the issue, a necessary skill for a trained journalist, which I am, and it must be difficult to distinguish who’s hot and who’s not, based on a one page query letter or a brief synopsis. There are only so many hours in the day, right? Which is why I can excuse the impersonal nature of most rejection letters, even those with hand written notes at the top like, “Thanks, but no.” At least they read it, right? I console myself with thoughts of Steven King, and his tales of early publishing woe, before he finally self-published and the rest is a writer's dream history.

I know I’m a good writer, though the sheer number of these rejections might suggest otherwise. There are always venues out there willing to publish my work (like this very publication). And I come to a job every day and interview senior level executives at some of the country’s biggest companies and write up their stories. They send me gift baskets in appreciation for a phrase well-turned, and that’s great. But it’s not enough. It’s like one of those Band-aids featuring brightly colored cartoon characters. On the surface it’s cute and funny, but underneath there’s a painful scratch that without close attention and care could get infected and need more than just a pretty little strip to cover up the damage.

Then came an email from Linda Kruger of The Fogelman Literary Agency in Dallas, Texas. She was cordially requesting the first three chapters of my novel. Her brief note was so polite I could practically see southern charm spilling out of my computer monitor. Of course that’s the writer in me, seeing things that may not be there. Allowing imagination to color a brief email message until it shines as a masterpiece worthy of a museum wall. Thinking, yes! This is it! This woman will recognize that I am a Times bestseller in training and rescue me from my 9 to 5 life. She’ll help mold my genius, and plunge me head first into book tours, radio interviews, and fantastically fat royalty checks enabling me to give up my car, move down town, and take cabs to get my groceries! This woman only wants to read a few chapters. But for me, seeing that oh-so-positive email was like being five again and having the teacher pick the end of the alphabet to line up first for recess. Just, fabulous.

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Kellye Whitney is a Chicago-based writer and editor. Her work has appeared at web sites like urbanfilmpremiere.com, ediets.com and in newspapers
and magazines. She is currently working on her first novel.  She can be contacted here.

© 2004 Me Three