sour grapes and unreasonable expectations

Is it healthy to feel hatred towards someone whose only crime is to not be interested in my work? Probably - after all, the bile has to go somewhere. And such a large portion of bile now that my hot lead has replied with great coolness.

I have wrestled with whether or not to go on the offensive, to rant, to scream and shout and whine and whinge and complain about fairness. After all, I send my work, my carefully honed and polished and cossetted babies, out to the market to see if anyone will buy - and what do I get back but weasel words and patronising platitudes and the strangely comforting form letter?

In some ways, the form letter has much to recommend it. "We don't want it - so shove off." Would I prefer what I received today - ill-considered feedback, tarring two books with a quick impression based on, at most, two pages? Then again, am I being fair? They don't like the work, they have so much more to read before they can go home and have dinner, or watch television, or go to the gym, or meet a friend for a drink, or even go to a book launch and have to network and chat and sell, sell, sell the product. Why should anyone read beyond the point when the attention slips to how cold the coffee has become? They don't owe me anything, my expectations are unreasonable.

Then again, how about common courtesy? But then again, no one asked me to write a book and certainly no one asked me to send it to them so that they could waste minutes of their lives reading it. And there are plenty more sending this stuff in all the time and they only need a handful more every week, from the bulging mailsacks.

This is becoming a rant. Looks like I made that decision while writing this posting. But I won't name names. Not yet anyway. And every rejection drives me ever closer to the dreaded avenue of self-publication, an avenue of shame littered with broken dreams, shattered hopes, purple prose and wheezing, hackneyed, stinking old clichés. And, having written that sentence, I feel overly qualified.

FB - if you ever read this, you might recognise yourself as the target. Am I being unfair? Would you reconsider either your opinion or the manner in which you expressed it? Drop me a line, or send me a comment on this blog which I can moderate.

More positivity tomorrow. After all, it's my birthday on Monday and I must get in the right frame of mind.