Rejection--just a shutter-snap.

"We are all working in the dark these days as none of us has ever experienced a market like this one!"---Top New York Agent

I've been dancing around the 'lost camera' issue. This week, in view of the ever-dipping market, I thought it a good time to discuss that particular loss.
This summer we spent a week in Japan, where my husband and I had lived for six years. I took hundreds of pictures, of the kids at their first "onsen" hot springs, of catching frogs in the rice paddies, of old friends and new. Then we went onto China, and again I took hundreds of pictures, of the new baby bunnies (born the day we arrived home in the village), of grandpa, of the kids 'walking on water' in a plastic bubble-type contraption.
One day, my husband took the camera to church--a province-wide choral gathering. Then he brought it with us to a restaurant. Then we went on to a friend's apartment, in separate taxis. The next time either of us thought of the camera was when we were going out to dinner.
Had we left it at the restaurant? In the taxi? And, by the way, whose fault was this?
My husband went back to check the restaurant. Our friends called the cab company, which I might add was so high-tech that we were able to give the street address and approximate time of the ride, and they could search up on their GPS the exact cab I was in. None of this produced the camera.
It was gone.
Whoosh.
It felt like a cold wind had blown through my body and sucked away part of my life. Two special weeks that would never come again.
"We can take more pictures, Mom," the kids said. "We'll just get another camera."
But what about those special shots I'd already taken?
"We have the memories," my husband said. "That's the most important part."
I cried myself to sleep anyway--thinking of the effort I'd gone to to take this shot and that cute pose. I dreamed that someone came to our door the next morning bearing the camera.
That didn't happen.
That next day I had no desire to move. I was defeated. But then my husband took me to get a new camera. At first I only took the few obligatory shots--of friends. (Why expend effort that might be lost again?) But soon I was back to snapping away.
I've gotten to the point where I don't usually think about the lost camera anymore.
The only reason I mention it now is because I recently read that book buying is down 18%. My experience with the camera reminded me of a similar experience: rejection.
When an agent/editor says, "Thanks, but no thanks," that cold wind blows through your body sucking not just weeks, but months, years, decades off your life.
"What am I doing?" you think. "My writing's worthless. I'm worthless."
"It's okay," a friend, partner, writing buddy will say. "You can write another story."
They just don't get it, you think.
"Did I have a bad editor?" you obsess, trying to find fault. "Was my story too long/short/funny/sad?"
"It's okay," a friend, partner, writing buddy will remind you. "Just keep writing."
But it's not okay. Nothing about it feels okay.
You dream that the phone will ring the next day. A happy person on the other end will say, "Sorry, there was a mix up. Of course, we'd love your story."
That doesn't happen.
"It's okay," a friend, partner, writing buddy will continue to urge you, until you sit back down at the writing desk. Tentative at first. (Perhaps it would be better to refurbish the cabinets or get a job at the library.)
Before you know it, you're writing again,though--- that bitter cold,life-sucking rejection a small shutter snap in your world.