Worth Passing on Hope

I think that I have handled my first rejection reasonably well. Most of the time, I've kept it quite in perspective. The rejection email came from the agent I met with at She Speaks. While my writing is "admiral" I don't have a platform. In today's world of publishing, even if you write well, if you don't have a platform than you are counted as a "Nobody." He was kind enough not to say that, but . . . .

When I was a teenager, I went through an Emily Dickenson phase. She has a poem. I'm not sure of the title, but part of it goes,

How dreary to be somebody

How public like a frog

To tell your name the live long day

To an admiring bog

Honestly, I bought that as a teen. I found comfort in it. For in the world of high school I was a nobody. People rarely even talked to me unless it was to ask to copy my notes. I was invisible. But then I had been invisible all my life. This poem spoke from one invisible soul to another.

But I don't live in that invisible world any longer. I do want to be somebody. I am somebody. I am somebody to God. I'm somebody to Mark and Jill and Debbie and Joe and Austin and Kolya and Grace and Elena and . . . .

So, there is no solace in those words any longer. I know what it means to count as someone to others.

The difficulty is knowing where to go from here. The proposal is still in several different hands. But, who knows what they are thinking.

It just seems odd that you can write "admirably" but be turned down because you are a nobody, because you have no platform. Yes, I know that platform helps sell books. What good is a a book that clutters a bookstore's shelves?

But still, I think I have something to say. I am convinced I need to start working on it again. I need to write the whole thing. If it only gets to one person or to several people in bits and pieces here, I still need to write it. It's worth writing. It's worth passing on the hope.

My subtitle was "Finding hope in unlikely places." I thought it was good and clever. I recently discovered that Philip Yancey has a new book out. It's title is "Finding God In Unlikely Places." I suppose I need to change that subtitle since something so similar is being used. But it speaks so much to what Hope's Choice is about. I guess I didn't call dibs loud or long enough!