Walk of Shame

Question: Are Latinos white?

Answer: Depends on whose labeling.

Q: Are halfbreed Mohawks white?

A: See Above.

Becky and I left the Halloween Sock Hop with Dylan at eight pm on a Wednesday.  George Washington Carver Elementary is in Coconut Grove, an area of Miami which is part tourist trap, part haven for black folks.  We left in the middle of a little league football game.  I assumed the folks surrounding the field were parents invested in the players.  Really, the whole neighborhood had come to bask in the bright lights.  

Groups of people clustered around the playground equipment, the bleachers, the sidewalks.  Plenty of entrepreneurs in the crowd, shooting dice, talking about the merits of products imported from the west coast vs. products imported from South America.  

They let us know we're white, as in, "The white folks leavin' their dance."  

Inside, I bristled.  But apart from going around and explaining that, actually, Dylan is mixed race, and so am I, and Becky is Cuban, I couldn't do much except walk on.  Since I'd just come from watching a bunch of costumed elementary kids run around and dance to Pit Bull and Flo Rida, I was grinning.  I got a lot of looks which I interpreted to mean, "Wipe that stupid grin off your face."

The streets were lined with enough cars to render everything one way.  People living within the arc of the floodlights had set up folding chairs in their lawns, where they could drink and talk.  It looked like a homecoming game, but it was just a Wednesday night and some eight-year-olds playing football.

A guy biked past with a toddler in one arm.  My jaw fell open, but no one in the crowd even blinked.  I might not be white, but I'm certainly a surburbanite.   

I wish I didn't feel nervous, but being the only faces shaded lighter than "Pennies from Heaven" on Benjamin Moore's color wheel was unnerving.  Why I read more than curiosity in the crowd's eyes, I don't know.  Okay, fine - racism.  I was scared because they're black and I'm not.  I hope one day that everything I dislike about myself will be gone, but until then I've got to own these kernels of racism in my heart. 

Dylan plowed through the crowd, munching on a Butterfinger.  He doesn't see race.  To him, we're all just old people, made invisible by passing time.  

Passing years will make a lot of things invisible.  Like the color line.  Mixed race will become the only race, and degrees, drops, and percentages won't matter.

In the meantime, please excuse the white folks.        

Open Letter to an Anonymous Author (3 of 3)

Reading this might have saved me embrassment.

Note to Self,

You wrote a book, but what do you know about writing a book?  You set a deadline, and four-hundred single-spaced pages later, you met it.  You proved to yourself you could chase an idea for longer than a short story, that a couple-few hours in the morning were enough to eventually have a mountain of words.  

Why oh why did you have to show it to people?  Friends and family, maybe, maybe, but people in publishing?  If you want a part in Clint Eastwood’s next movie, you don’t send him a tape of the play your high school drama club did.

Two megabytes spent on the same story, .97 megabytes after your deadline, you finally began a draft you can be proud of... couldn’t you have waited a couple of years?   

Oh, well.  Screw ‘em if they can’t suffer an amateur misstep.  

You recover beautifully.

Sincerely,

Not in the Buying Office Forever

Open Letter to an Anonymous Author (2 of 3)

Not the book in question; just making a point.

Dear Self-Published Author,

You paid a print-on-demand house to publish your book, but what do you know about writing?  Paying to have your book printed means you have money to spare, not that you’re an author.  

You claim it’s not about rejection by traditional publishers or the strength of your work, it’s about having creative control and a bigger share of the profits.  Right, then; what would you do if your P-O-D sales impressed the big boys so much, they offered to publish your book?  If autonomy is so important to you, wouldn’t you tell them to stuff their contract in a pipe and smoke it?  Think of the joy, being able to reject the ones who rejected you.

When you write, you’re pulling thoughts which are beautiful and perfect in your mind and putting them on paper.  You need another set of eyes to tell you how close or how far you’ve gotten from capturing that perfect idea.  It helps if those eyes aren’t on your payroll.

Money can buy pages, but it can’t buy talent.

Very Sincerely,

Your Grammatical Choices Hurt My Brain in the Buying Office

Open Letter to an Anonymous Author (1 of 3)

(not the author, or her book; just using it to illustrate my point)

Dear Author,

Someone’s published your book, but what you know about the bookselling business?  And as much as it’s a calling, it’s also a business, one which generated 2.3 billion dollars in sales in August (that’s right, this dying business produced a measly 2.3 billion in sales during the slowest month of the year).

But this isn’t about sales; it’s about knowing your place.  You scheduled a launch and asked us to handle the book sales.  Apart from self-promotion, your job is done.  Show up the night of the event, talk, smile, charm, answer questions, and sign – that’s it.  Leave the bookselling to professionals who know what we’re doing.

For twenty-eight years, Books & Books has worked events.  Every event can’t be a homerun, but we always bring the pages for folks to turn.  Did it ever occur to you that the publisher and the bookstore did not provide certain information because, frankly, it’s none of your business?  Worry yourself to pieces all you want, if it’s your nature, but to approach another bookseller once you've made an agreement with us?  That's just wrong.  

Every day is a marathon, and the precious energy we wasted on you and your book could have been spent on someone else.  Someone who knows enough to trust the pros. 

Don't mess with the people deciding whether to stock your book. 

Sincerely,

Pissed Off in the Buying Office

Rejection

The bookseller’s version of State by State has two issues now, the Pacific Northwest Reader and The Great Lakes Reader.  I’m assured my Florida essay will be in the Southeast version.  I haven’t announced it from the rooftops because I want to be dead-solid certain, like, book in hand, before I say anything.

Do you know what a promise of seeing my words in print from a publishing titan did to my writing habits?  Nothing.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I sent out half a dozen stories to various magazines in the fall of 1998.  The rejection letters I received shut me down.  Even the positive one, with the handwritten note and the first page returned with corrections, didn’t keep me going.  I stopped writing.  I don’t remember what I did instead.  Work, I believe.  Cooking.  Handyman projects.    

It was February of 2006 before I started writing again.  Nearly eight years.

On Friday, I got a rejection email from Blood Orange Review for my first cold submission in twelve years.  Do you know what that did to my writing habits?  Nothing.

Well, my first submission in twelve years if you don’t count the Writer’s Digest 2007 competition, where I got three rejections (two short stories and one script) and one Honorable Mention in the Film / Script category.  But first cold submission in twelve years has impact, which is necessary for the repetition of do you know what that did…nothing to work.  I can’t count the Writer’s Digest competition.  I was so excited to get the Honorable Mention letter than I didn’t even notice the rejections.  

I saved the email from Blood Orange Review, as I’ve heard some writers have done with their rejections.  I was disappointed, but it also felt good.  It didn’t rock my world.  It didn’t ruin my day.  It didn’t change that I’d written that morning, and would write again the next morning.  

I’ve been saying that I’ve written past the point where rejection matters since 2008 or so.  

I finally believe it.