The Soul Crusher

By the end of November 2011 I was now visiting the gym three mornings a week to walk on the running machine as I tried to get myself into a new routine. The one I had been following while I was writing had stopped as abruptly as the writing.

I found the walking was helping in my recovering from the terrible spinal injury I had suffered earlier in the year and now I was going to find out that it would also help me mentally too.

I had spent three weeks earlier in the month sending out my manuscript to agents, fifteen in total, and had convinced myself they would be fighting over the rights to sign me: then the first reply came through the letter box!

I looked at the large white A4 envelope on the doormat like a child on his birthday that had just received a bundle of cards. I knew the hand-writing on the envelope; it was me who had written the address. I knew it was a reply from an agent, one which had stated that replies would only be provided along with a self-addressed envelope.

I was so excited. Here it is. The first agent wanting my signature, I opened it and my eyes went to the first line.

Dear Mr so and so,

Thank you for approaching us to be your agent but on this occasion we believe this story would not fit our present portfolio.

My heart sunk and my soul felt as if it had been crushed by a falling building.

The letter carried on but I didn’t want to read any further. My soul was crushed.

The next day I was pacing myself through my 45 minute walk on the running machine and the thought struck me like a slap around the face. If I was an agent and I wanted to snap up some hot-shot new writer who had written to me, I would phone then a.s.a.p before another agent snapped them up. I wouldn’t wait for the time delay in writing back as you could lose them to a competitor.

Over the next few weeks as the white A4 envelopes, and in a couple of cases emails, came through my door with my hand written address my heart would sink, for I knew it would be a rejection.

I was glad I had started to go back to the gym so I could walk-out my disappointment and to have time to think what my next approach would be and what path I would have to take to get myself published.   

Keep Focused

November 2011 began to drag on and I, for the first time, began to start to suffer from boredom.

Since I had resigned from my job and finished in early May 2011 I had enjoyed every moment (except for the crippling pain in my lower back) and had settled into a regular routine. Writing from Monday to Friday with weekends off, just like normal day to day work, I also had time for some voluntary work, plus I had my weekly meeting with Dangerous John down the pub for my manuscript reviews.

Now I was hanging around to hear if I was to progress in the new writers competition and from the selected agents I had approached. My routine I had built my life around had stopped as quickly as had my writing. I was just-hanging-around and my waistline began to show from its after-effects.

I was now only seeing the Chiropractor once a week as I couldn’t afford to pay for anymore visits. My back was slowly getting better and I was still popping too many pills. I knew regular exercise is good for back problems so I decided to start going back up the gym as it was cheaper than the Chiropractor.

I found that walking helped to ease the pain in my back so when I hobbled into the gym I went straight for the running machine. In my case it was a slow walk for 45 minutes. Every step I took felt as if I was standing on some sharp glass, but after I finished I felt as if I was making progress. I think about it know, and it was my mental fitness which I was working out that day and the following days too.

The main difference between a writer that makes it and a writer that doesn’t is that a published writer will have kept focused. They keep to a regular routine and if situations change then their routine changes too.

You must keep focused on your goal of getting published and never waver. With every step in the process you must be thinking about the next step you will take, especially from the constant rejections you will face on your journey, and how you are going to handle it, but more importantly; what are you going to do about it?

If you keep focused and are prepared to change with the situation then you are more likely to succeed than someone who isn’t.

Joker's Monday

Another weekend has passed and Monday arrives just as the night follows the day. It has been raining all day and the Monday blues are sweeping over the meadows like sand in the desert.

As always I try to look on the positive side and think a few jokes can help lift the mood, so please enjoy

YOU KNOW WHEN YOU’RE OVER THE HILL WHEN…….

Looking after the lawn has become a big highlight of your life.

One of the pillows on your bed is a hot water bottle.

You begin every sentence with, “Nowadays….”

Your back goes out more than you do.

Many of your work colleagues were born the same year that you got your last promotion.

The clothes you’ve put away until they come back into style….come back into style.

You wear black socks with sandals.

I don’t know if I’m using these sentences let? But I must admit I am prone to saying, “Nowadays” maybe I am hurtling along in life and just don’t realise it. Maybe it’s time I had a mid-life crises! Then again I did leave a secure job in the middle of the worst recession since the great depression to write a book! Who knows I might already be there.

Views required

November 2011.

I had entered my manuscript into the Times Newspaper competition for new authors and I had started to send out feelers to agents. I was convinced the phone would be red hot with desperate agents fighting amongst themselves to sign me. From there it would be a simple step to get a publishing deal. Again the publishers would be in a frenzy of activity as they out-bid themselves for my signature for at least a three book deal. I was convinced this would be the case, but while I waited for all of this to happen, I decided to print off a couple of copies of the full manuscript to give to people who had shown an interest in reading my book. I wanted their comment on what they thought about my writing.

It took all day to print of the two copies on my home printer, single sided on A4 paper. It also took two reams of paper and when I turned up at the home of the first person, and stood in their door way holding this mass of paper, with a smile on my face, the response I got soon wiped it away.

“Fu@k me, Have I got to read all of that?” came the reply as I said “here is my manuscript.”

It was not the response I expected and my heart sunk once again.

This was only the second time somebody even had a sniff of my story, and on both occasions their reaction was enough for me to know that I could expect a rough-ride with the professionals once they got their teeth into me.  

This was also the moment I knew I had to harden up, and learn to take the positive out of rejection and learn from it, if not my manuscript will never get further than collecting dust in a box in the attic.

This is a piece of advice for new authors. You will be rejected time and time again. When you think you have made it over the first hurdle you will be rejected again.  If you can’t take rejection then don’t even bother to get your book published because from the start to the very end is a never ending merry-go-round of rejections.

It’s a bloodthirsty business and the weak will slaughtered, just like in the jungle.

The first tentative steps

My manuscript had now been safely sent off to the competition for new authors and I had three month’s to kill so I decided, while I was just-hanging-around, to take the first tentative steps into the publishing world.

I typed in “author’s agents” into Google search and up came the Association of Authors Agents.

I printed off two pages of agents names. I began by picking one agent starting with the A’s then one starting with B’s then through to C’s and so on until I had at least fifteen randomly picked names.

Starting with the first name I typed it into Google search, and up came its page link which I clicked on. I read what type of author they represented. Most agents like to specialise into a particular sector of the market so it only seemed logical to contact people who would be open to my type of story and to drop the names that didn’t.

After a couple of hour’s research I had five Agents with their contact addresses and the rules you needed to follow before they would even look at you. They all seemed to have similar specifications. No email submissions would be accepted, a one page synopsis only, the first three chapters only printed in 12 point on A4 paper, and a one page history of your education, university and any previous writing history or success.

I had been through the University of Life, but as the rejections came in I wondered to myself, maybe, just maybe if I had had the honour of an Oxford or Cambridge Universality education I would have made it over their first hurdle.

I was reminded of a story about someone who carried out some research into job applications.  They had basically applied to various companies using the same letter, but with half of them was attached a picture of a white person, and the other half a picture of a black person. The white person was either called into an interview or given a reply while the other never got called in or just heard nothing.

In the end over the next three weeks I repeated this procedure again, and again, then sent out all the required paper work to a dozern or so agents.

I waited to see what happened.

Joker's Monday

Here we are again, another Monday morning. What a depressing weekend of negative news from the media. I try to watch, or read, less and less of the news as I find it can change my mood in such a negative way.

You wake up felling ok and then watch the early morning bulletins with its death and destruction. Reading the paper or looking over the internet news feeds throughout the day is no different; all you get is negative reports on humanities destructive activities against their fellow person or the planet. You can, without realizing it, end up feeling; what’s the point in life?

Sometimes ignorance is best, if not then a joke and a laugh can help overcome all this negative energy. So I hope the below will go just a little way towards bringing some positive energy into your life today.

 

Women’s Dictionary.

Argument = a discussion that occurs when you’re right but he just hasn’t realized it let.

Barbecue = you bought the groceries, washed the lettuce, chopped the tomatoes, diced the onions, marinated the meat, cleaned everything up. But he made the dinner’.

Childbirth = you get to go through 36 hours of painful contractions; he gets to hold your hand.

Exercise = to walk up and down a shopping arcade, occasionally resting to make a purchase.

Hairdresser = someone who is able to create a style you will never be able to duplicate again.

Valentine’s Day = a day when you have dreams of a candlelight dinner, diamonds, and romance, but consider yourself lucky to get a card.

Waterproof Mascara = comes off if you cry, swim or it rains, but not if you want to remove it.

 

Top five rejection lines given by women.

(1) I’m not attracted to you in that way. (You are the ugliest man in the world.)

(2) I think of you as a brother. (You remind me of that inbred banjo-playing geek in Deliverance.)

(3) I’m concentrating on my career. (Even something as boring and unfulfilling as my job is better than dating you.)

(4) I’ve got a boyfriend. (I prefer my male cat and a tub of chocolate ice-cream.)

(5) I don’t date man where I work. (I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last man in the solar system, much less the office.)

 

I hope these brought a smile to your face. If you have anymore then please post them on the comment section or email me at danieljonesfrenzy@gmail.com and I will let the world see what you find funny.

The addiction

So here I was in November 2011 with a finished manuscript which I had entered into my first competition hoping for a fast track to success.

I was still seeing my chiropractor, but because my money was starting to run out I was now only seeing him once a week, instead of three times a week which I had when I had first ruptured my spleen.

I had travelled through the gates of hell; back and forth for many months suffering agonising pain as I paid for my sins in life.

Slowly, and very slowly indeed, I began to fight back as I tried to regain control over my body.

I was dropping four pain killing tablets down my throat every three hours. I had been for months, and like a spider in the night that creeps up and spins it webs, I was entangled in a never ending desire to pop the pills.

I have read in the press about super stars who died after overdosing on prescription drugs and you think to yourself, ‘how could they be so silly.’

Well I wasn’t on prescription drugs which are a lot more powerful than the basic pain killers you can buy over the counter. But and this is a very big but, I found that I couldn’t go more than three hours without the need to pop more of these, over the counter pills.

I kept saying to myself, ‘Just take four every six hours.’ But just like the night follows the day my body followed the same routine in its hunger for pain relief.

If I missed the schedule my back would ache in pain; then one day I had enough.

I bought a bottle of strong cider and thought, ‘f@uk the pain killers.’

I drunk myself silly on a 3 litre bottle of Frosty Jacks cider (7.5%) and for a short period of time I was in a heavenly bliss.

I awoke the next day with a hangover, but and again this is a big but, I had broken the three hour cycle of pill popping which my body now demanded, and I was never to go back.

Slowly, very slowly I reduced the pain killers, and I found that the more I reduced the intake of these, the more my pain abated.

As in a previous chapter I talked about a book called, The Secret, who basic ethos is that everything is connected by our thoughts in the brain. This experience only confirmed this ethos. Pain was in my thoughts constantly so I popped the pills to stop it, but as I reduced the pills, the pain also reduced.

Why was this?

Because the less I thought of pain killers, the less I had pain.