In Tuesday’s post I talked about how a director’s harsh rejection made Sidney Poitier even more determined to become an actor. His experience prompted me to dig up a bit of correspondence I’ve saved from November 30, 2005 from a pretty accomplished writer I’d met at some kind of writing event here in Las Vegas.
After hearing not much more than the 30-second “elevator speech” for my then half-written manuscript, Bastard Husband: A Love Story, the writer followed up with an email saying I should “drop this project like the bad habit it is” because “your future male dating relationships, well, you'll never how many DON'T CALL YOU BACK because you once wrote this book - and that's for the rest of your life.”
My project would doom all future relationships. For the rest of my life. Yikes.
He went on to say that he certainly wouldn't call me back, “even though you're smart, pretty, energetic, sexy and all the great things one hopes to find in a single woman” lest things don’t turn out perfectly and he ends up in my next book, “warts and all.” In the P.S. he asked me to send him my phone number.
I’m telling you only a fraction of his email—written in red, formatted primarily in solid caps—but the truth is, his words drove me to work even harder toward my goal of finishing my book. Again, angels come in all disguises.
As it turns out, I seem to be doing okay with the men, especially those who have read my stuff, but that guy had a point: People do take an awfully big risk when they cross the path of a writer like me who’s drawn to human nature stories like a moth to a backyard floodlight. Fortunately for him, he brushed my life with a single stroke, so he’s getting away with a mere blog entry.
But yeah, I totally see the risk.
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