Who Is This Guy? Editor.

You've actually worked in the publishing industry, true? Yes, for a small publishing firm as a book editor. Only for a few months, though. I couldn't stand one aspect of it. And that was? The rejection letters. Back to that, huh? You should have had a form letter. I did. I misspoke when I pluralized "letter." It was only one letter that made me say, "No way. I can't do this." Well, what was the deal? I came in to work one Tuesday morning and found a package on my desk from a woman named Ida. She was from Belzoni, Mississippi. Maybe Cleveland, Mississippi. It was a hand-illustrated, hand-bound children's book about a black bear cub, a bunny, and a little Cherokee boy. They became fast friends as they traveled together to the end of the sky so they could wake up the moon. See, the moon had fallen asleep and everyone was tired of daylight, including the sun, who had been shining for days. Precious. Yeah, it was adorable. The only problem with it was the fact that Ida was functionally illiterate. It was incredibly difficult to read, though she sounded out the words phonetically. Like if norman2 wrote a children’s book? Exactly. Except it wasn’t a stylistic choice. You would have cleaned that up as the editor, wouldn’t you? Oh, absolutely. So I pitched it to the Acquisitions Editor, who also happened to be the president of the company. She took one look at it and flipped it back across the table at me and said, “What else do you have?” That was the kiss of death for the book. I kept thinking about the courage it must have taken to put all that work into the book and then send it out, unsolicited to a publisher. Hell, deviantART is full of good writers who don’t have the balls to do that. Or maybe it wasn’t so much courage as it was freedom. Freedom? Freedom from having her ego all wrapped up in it. Freedom from having her feelings hurt by a rejection letter. Perhaps. I see. She might have turned that "rejection" corner. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. Ah, Janis Joplin. Kris Kristofferson. Touche. Anyway, what really killed me was the fact that someone was going to have to read the rejection letter to her. If it was going to be a big disappointment to her, she wouldn’t be able to have it be a private disappointment. Someone else had to be on hand. Ouch. Maybe. I took great care with that particular letter. Hand-crafted and sincere. After I finished writing it I stuck it in an envelope along with her manuscript, put it in the Outbox, and wrote another letter – a “take this job and shove it” letter. I couldn’t stand my boss, anyway. So I tempered my sadness for Ida with the liberating joy of quitting a job. I love quitting jobs. Right. When did you ever have a job? Touche, again. Now, I love me some politics, and I even love art that is political in nature. But I despise having to undergo a political process in order to make the art, or get the art out there. That was the downfall of Neighborhood Texture Jam, actually. None of us wanted to do the political things necessary to get to the next level.

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