George,
It was a pleasure to read your novel, but this just isn’t a good fit.
George,
Unfortunately, this novel isn’t a good fit for our agency.
George…George…George…
Silence. Silence. Silence.
Novel rejections pair well with getting choked out at BJJ. The blood always comes back. Then ice cream. Not that low-calorie shit. Real cookies and cream.
Sometimes sex.
Not for pleasure. That’s selfish. For proof.
Forty-two. Cunnilingus. Check.
She never minds.
Rejection arrives as electronic stamps. The choke arrives as fact you’re never as strong as you think. Sex arrives wearing addiction’s old face.
Proof the meatsuit is starting to fall away.
ReJeCtIoN
A word I know well.
Rejected from special billets in the Marines. Rejected by women. Rejected by my kid. Rejected on job applications. And now the novel.
Theme?
Six years old. Parents divorce. Told to be a man.
Thirty-six years later. Still lost. Still proving. Still here.
That’s not nothing.
The only people who never get rejected are the ones who never put anything real on the table.
Rejection means you are trying. Not trying is worse.
Just keep trying George.