Rejection: Goal #7

It was just like any other normal morning. I had my coffee, I had Sonya on my lap (Sonya is my laptop), I had to go to work in a couple hours and I was in a bad mood. Then I opened my email box....

“Thank you so much for querying us with your project. Unfortunately, we did not feel it was the right fit for our agency. Thanks for thinking of The Knight Agency and we wish you nothing but the best in your writing career.

Sincerely,
Jane Doe
Associate Agent/Submissions Coordinator”


My very first response letter from a publishing agency. I have been waiting for this day since I wrote “The Magic Key”.

Of course, the response I was expecting was something more along the lines of:

“Dear Melissa,
Please oh please send us your full manuscript, I just can’t wait another minute to finish your brilliant story. J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyers can both say goodbye to their careers once your novel hits the shelf of every major bookstore in the world. Enclosed is a check for one million dollars as a down payment, once we receive your full novel you will receive another ten million.

Sincerely,
your biggest fan
Scholastics publishing agency.”

Ok, so we can’t all have our way. But, to tell the truth - I was, in a way, sort of excited to receive my first rejection letter. It says so many things to me about who I am, and the goals I am trying to accomplish. All I can do is laugh. Ironically - it brightened my day.

When I decided to create a film company, I wanted it to be a place where artists could find solace in that inner tortured place that most artists go. I want to take those dark stories, those sad life experiences, those twisted minds that make most people wince and I want give them a new name. I want to shine a light on those things. I want to make the ugly beautiful.... No, not even that.... I want to show that the ugly was never ugly in the first place, I want to show that you’re just not looking at it the right way. I want to give a safe place for the “ugly” to go, and say “You’re not ugly, there is beauty in this situation no one has ever seen before, and I’m going to tell your story to the world because you deserve it!”.
I want Dark Heart Picture Films to be the light at the end of the tunnel for sadness. I am convinced there is freedom to be found, rather then an endless stream of hurt, and darkness. I have to believe this.

Now that is a lot to live up to, and, turns out, it’s not as easy as it sounds. What am I saying? It doesn’t even sound easy.


How do you take the story of, say, someone who has been murdered, and shine light on it? I asked myself this question, then ironically, I ended up getting a little kick in the pants when I caught a movie entitled “The Dead Girl”.

Directed by Karen Moncrieff (I just love finding successful, female directors), she tells the story of a girl who has been murdered, and how this girl’s death affects four different women; the stranger that finds her, the coroner that autopsies her, the wife of the murderer, and the mother of the dead girl.
All of these women actually begin major life transformations after this girl’s body has been discovered, and it is only because of her death that these transformations are made possible.

Ok, I know it’s a stretch, but what that speaks to me is that; when life gets shitty, and I don’t mean your football team just lost the super-bowl shitty, I mean your (person that’s really close to you) just died unnecessarily shitty.... Maybe.... JUST maybe there’s still a light somewhere that can be found. It’s not to say it’s not awful. It’s not to say you can’t cry your eyes out until your body is numb, and shaking. But, if there is any hope to be found... I want to find it. Even if it means trudging through a swamp to find it.

Now, how do I transition this talk of death back to a rejection letter? It seems so insignificant now...

One day I was having a conversation with my aunt about how this boy had just broken my heart.... not me, right?
While words of hatred, and anger, and swearing were bouncing off the walls, she stopped, and said something along the lines of; “I think you need to go through these experiences, and be able to feel things as deeply as you do, because it’s what fuels you to be able to write the way that you do.”
Way to turn the conversation around to slap me in the face... Use my writing against me. *sigh* Perhaps I should stop complaining.


A rejection letter, out of a hundred more I could receive. Whether they are negative or positive letters, it doesn’t matter. Little let downs in life, I think, might be little reminders to say “Why are you so upset? If you'd stop crying and stop being so lazy you might be able to do some good with your sadness. Look for the good in this, and focus on that”. I think we fret little things so often, that we sometimes forget there’s any good in this world... wait that might just be me.


Either way, as a director trying to make films that find the light in a dark place; I couldn’t ask for anything more than a rejection letter. I will frame that rejection letter. I love that I got rejected. Because it says I tried, it says I sweat the time, and put the effort in, and I’m not giving up!! I did something I have been telling myself I would do for two years... I sent my novel out there into the world to be rejected!!



“Someone else’s boy, you’ve had it so hard,
Will you grow up to be you, Or a sum of your parts just hanging in the air?
Someone else’s boy, tell me your convoluted stories through a half-rotten mouth,
I will decipher them, to tell the world of your heart,
How beautiful things can come from the dark” - Azure Ray