I TOOK MY HARP TO A PARTY

And nobody asked me to play. The others were jolly and arty. So I took the damn thing away. So sang Gracie Fields.

Ooh, the pathos. Gracie Fields and me, springing the strings of creative rejection together. Gracie Fields and I, stringing the springs of our hearts across the yawning chasm between Yuletide cheer and the half-awake publishing world. Pretty tightly wound springs, too. Wouldn’t want to see those things snap. Rejection strains the will, a little. I didn’t write much for a week (lots of rejections), after having written something like 15,000 words in the previous two. Seven rejections in two weeks. I don’t mind so much, (honest, you bum, don't doubt me!) and most of the editors have given me little notes of encouragement, like an aunt who pats your head non-committally after a piano recital. Maybe the problem is words like “non-committally” with its repetitive consonantal obsessions. Or maybe they just don’t like the way I give them the story straight (it’s the story of an etcetera). Or maybe they genuinely don’t like the writing. Hard to tell. The worst part of it, though, is the paranoid suspicion that it’s something petty. I can’t stand pettiness in the real world, so suspecting it in the subreal world is a place I can’t go. It wouldn’t be fair to them. Their feelings would get hurt. They’d feel persecuted. They’d wash their hands of the mess and say, “Not mea culpo, you meanie!” Well, it ain’t mea culpa either.

Really, nobody is obligated to publish anything. Nobody but my mother, of course, and lord knows that isn’t going to happen. I tried to convince the parents to start a publishing house, but they couldn’t see past my own selfish intentions. I could easily see past them, like peering over a fence at the bikini-wearing neighbor lady. Nobody is obligated to write, either, but there I go again, doing what I want. This whole process looks like a psychiatrist’s amusement park.

Oh well, can’t let it get to me. Just gotta take my harp to a different party and hope that the champagne is flowing freely.