Photo Credit: Jenn Ster via Flickr

Rejection does indeed suck, but when it is a rejection peppered with insults it takes on a whole new meaning. I received a rejection for my manuscript recently. I have received several rejections over the years, but most have been kind and encouraging. Not this one. Not the one I got from ‘Mikey’.

Mikey. A grown and seemingly professional man who goes by Mikey. I had honestly thought twice (at least twice) about querying a man named Mikey. I didn’t feel that he would get my work but he was on a list of agents I had so eventually I decided to submit. Feeling ill the whole time.

‘Mikey’ did not disappoint . . . he was not someone who ‘got’ my writing. He sent me a rather haughty response saying that he had received my work but he was just so busy that he could not be bothered to take on my work as well as all the other work he had. He made a point of telling me that he was quite busy and in demand and, well, busy. He also mentioned that he was busy. What a wanker. Then, after telling me that he was very busy with the tons of manuscripts that he was handling (I may have failed to mention that he was exceedingly busy) he said that my work was not interesting enough for him to pay any attention to it.

Wow, what a kick in the teeth. And completely unnecessary, not to mention arrogant. Too busy I can totally understand, but even if he was not too busy, he would not handle my writing because in all of his ‘busyness’ he found my work dull. My work contains murder, sex, immortality, lust, demons and the like. Dull? No way.

I hate to admit that I was a little hurt and more than a tad bit irritated. I started to picture Mikey in his busy little kingdom. I picture Mikey sitting in his mom’s basement in a dirty wife-beater T-shirt pecking away at his beat up Macintosh thinking that he is a major force in publishing. And busy, so busy . . . probably fixing his mom’s garbage disposal and mowing her yard. I bet he’s never kissed a girl either. At least, that’s how I choose to see him and I feel better about his snotty, off-handed remark. ‘Mikey’.

-Carol Blodgett