The Seasonal Bar and the bartender behind it has suffered a bit of a blow to its ego this morning in the form of a rejection letter from a perspective publisher. The second this year but one that I thought was so very close. The company, Chelsea Green, is based out of both England and Vermont and I thought that last little latter tidbit would be the in, and it was, at the beginning, but as I progressed and they continued to ask for more information from me, I began to falter a bit, at least in my own mind.

Ah but the delusions of grandeur are alway so sweet, no?

I recently moved and took on a part time job as a building manager. As life goes, these things tend to coincide all at once. No single event can happen in the space of time that is allowable. Everything congregates together. As a result, the only bracket of time left to me was after work around 11 at night when I returned home. In retrospect, getting up at 7 a.m. writing the blog, taking the kid out into the world, doing work for the building, getting through a shift at Rustic, then coming back and trying to get some words down on the page after a long day may have been too much and the content suffered. But, you only hit the balls you swing at. Rejection is a symptom of trying to do something. If you don’t like it or want it then don’t try.

I had sent a 46 page proposal and been waiting to hear back for three weeks now. This morning I saw the email, waited, opened, and read the first line: “I regret I don’t have the news I’d hoped to share with you.” Now, I did know these guys already had a cocktail book in the works and due out shortly. They told me so. the guy really liked me and wanted me but he did tell me beforehand that it would be a longshot. Just plain bad timing. Some of his advice to me in the letter this morning was to find a publisher who hadn’t produced a cocktail book in a couple of years.

I wrote a nice letter back but really, really wanted to say, “Good luck with your trash cocktail book.” Yes, the vitriol wells up in these times and it’s hard to squash it down. The reality is that there’s so many damn cocktail books out there right now and I’m a nobody in the be all end all of this weird world. I know my idea is strong, it’s my social media following that is extremely weak along with my general sort of presence. You’ve got to put yourself out there these days. For me it’s difficult because social media is such a double edged sword.

Shit, maybe I told too many people about it. They say to keep good news or goals to yourself until they’re manifested.

The positive is I now have a much stronger proposal to go forward with. The original was 22 pages and this one is now 48. Yes, they’re actually that fucking long. This crazy guy, Jocko Willink, a former Navy seal has this expression when anything challenging happens. He says “Good.” I know, it’s extreme. But its hard edge is useful in these trying times. His philosophy? “When things are going bad, there’s going to be some good to take away.” Ok, then, Jocko. Good. It’ll make it all the more sweet when it does get published.

The rejection stuff is hard. I’ve tried to get a bunch of my sci-fi novels picked up over the years and received maybe a half dozen rejections since 2021. The difficult part here is reading the bad news but the bad news wouldn’t exist if I didn’t put myself out there in the first place. Life will always serve shit sandwiches. You can choose to skirt around the edges, take little bites and make it last forever or just down the whole thing in one go, wipe your mouth off and keep going.