In a Funk

Many are the stories of talented artists, including writers, who produce wonderful work but are not discovered until after their (often premature) death. Van Gough is a classic example. Now revered, during Van Gough’s lifetime he sold only one painting before he shot himself. John Kennedy Toole, whose Confederacy of Dunces won the 1981Pulitzer Prize 11 years after his suicide, is a 20th century example. With so many called to try to provide the world with their artistic works and so few chosen, it’s not surprising artists are often in a funk, although few are driven to commit suicide.

While artist communities provide peer-to-peer support, regardless of what they say, deep down most artists want public recognition (with the possible exception of academics for whom peer acknowledgement may be sufficient). Recognition comes only after the artist has sold his work.

Now, lest you try to read between the lines that this blog post is a silent cry for help before I do myself in, let me assure you it’s not. I am in a funk, but I’m not even close to slitting my wrists. I sent out my first fifteen queries for Bad Policy and received six “no thanks” and nine silence-is-not-golden responses.

I know preservation is the key, so I’m rewriting the query and will send out the next batch soon. In the meantime, I’m editing Cabin Fever—the next in the series—and working on my next non-fiction project and also the first draft of a novel in a new series. I have plenty on my plate, but my enthusiasm for any of these projects is currently a bit low.

As I reflect on this writing business forty plus years after torturing my lab rat in Psychology 101, I do recognize the power of intermittent random reinforcement. I trained my rat to pound away on his little lever to “earn” a few drops of water. At first he got regular positive feedback. Five lever hits and a drop of water would appear. Then I trained him to do more and more work before he got his positive reinforcement. Finally, I hooked him with the all powerful random intermittent reinforcement. The poor rat became a nervous wreck; his fur became patchy and he tried all sorts of aberrant behaviors because he thought perhaps it was them that triggered his water reward. But through it all he pounded on his lever.

I think I generated some bad karma getting my A in Psych 101 through rat torture, and this query business is payback time. Really, when you think of it, aren’t writers going through the query process pretty similar to that rat of mine? Every once in a while an agent asks for a partial or says something nice (or has a new twist on the query rejection that you interpret as a bit of a pat on the back). In the meantime you work away, hoping for a miracle.

Well, on that positive note, I have some more keys on my keyboard to pound. Never know when someone might send me an encouraging note.

~ Jim