Make a Wish, Then Forward This Post

by Barbara Ann Yoder | Mar 16, 2013 | Publishing | 6 comments

Photo of magic wand and spilled coffee. Image Copyright 2013, Barbara Ann Yoder.

First thing in the morning, I got this email promising that whatever I wished for would come true if I forwarded the message within one hour of opening it. The sender assured me that the more people I forwarded the message to, the faster my wish would come true. If I sent the email to one person, my wish would be granted in one year. If I sent it to twenty people, my wish would be granted in three hours. But if I deleted the email after reading it, I’d have an entire year of bad luck.

A Winsome Coincidence

Ordinarily I don’t believe in chain mail. However, at the exact same time that I received the chain mail, my word of the day came in from Merriam-Webster, and the word was winsome. This was too much of a coincidence to ignore. After all, one of the lucky chain mail participants won a fridge full of cool drinks; someone else won a microwave; and the sender’s mom got an offer on her land on the Suwannee River that she hadn’t even seen since 1987—an offer that came out of the blue!

So I made my wish.

A Three-Hour Book Contract

I wished I’d find a publisher for my book and have a contract within three hours. Why not? It would be no problem to forward the message, complete with its dancing leprechaun and Irish blessing, to twenty people. I could fire it off well within deadline. I could sit back in my chair at my desk, drink my coffee, and wait for my luck to change.

I thought about the fame my book would bring me—the talk shows I’d appear on, the autographs I’d sign. I thought about the movie deals, the action figure spinoffs, and the great pot of gold I’d discover. When I peered into that pot and glimpsed my reflection, I grinned. There were plenty of aspiring authors in the world, but I was the fairest of all.

Just My Luck

Just then the call came in. I got a handsome offer for my book, accepted it, let out a whoop, danced a jig until I awoke with a jolt at my desk, checked the time, saw that I’d missed the one-hour deadline to forward the chain mail, spilled my coffee, and cursed my luck. As I mopped up the mess, I thought of a guy I knew who in 1981 got a book deal just by writing his idea on a napkin at a restaurant and pushing it across the table to his friend, the one with publishing connections. I worked for the guy at the time; I typed up his napkin notes—me, a legal secretary who was really a writer.

Clarity

Fast forward to the present, I’m clear on one thing: Two lines scribbled on a soggy napkin won’t be nearly enough to get a book contract in this topsy-turvy era of publishing. So I’ve added “spiff up book proposal” to my To Do list, reviewed the definition of winsome, and drafted this post.

I’ve also read the history of chain letters at Snopes.com, so I am not obsessing on the consequences of breaking the chain. I am not crying over spilled coffee with soymilk. I am carrying on with my writing life, in spite of everything.

Do you have a good luck or hard luck publishing tale to tell? Share your story in the comments, then forward this post to twenty friends within one hour, and your luck will surely change!

Comments

6 Comments

Judy Anderson on March 19, 2013 at 6:33 pm

Does an almost published story count? Can’t say if it’s hard luck or good luck yet, but I’m holding out for glory, slight as it may be. About a year ago I found myself sitting next to a woman who told me she was publishing an anthology of stories, essays and poems by women remembering the 60’s and 70’s. While I’d like to say I was barely walking then, the truth is I was running headlong into the rest of my life at a speed that defied both logic and caution. I got lucky. I ran into the man I would marry and have a child with, leave, but love for a lifetime. I wrote that story in a poem and just learned that I’d made the first cut for both the anthology and their poetry contest. How will it turn out? I don’t know, but I’m making a wish and forwarding your post… time will tell!

Love your blog! It’s beautiful, inspiring, and joyful!
- Barbara Ann Yoder on March 19, 2013 at 7:55 pm
  
  Congratulations on making first cut for the anthology and the contest, Judy. That’s fantastic news. I love your tales of the sixties, and I’m wishing with you! Keep me posted.
Aine Greaney on March 20, 2013 at 4:52 pm

Love this blog and site, Barbara. You’re such a great writer. O.k., here’s my hard-luck publishing story. About 15 years ago, on a particularly bad week of rejection letters, I got one that read, “Dear Debbie…” (My name ain’t never been ‘Debbie’) nor any derivative thereof). It also referenced the submitted story. So I called them up. Oh, yes, they were mortified. And contrite. They had put this “Debbie’s” rejection letter in my SAE. “So what about my story?” I asked. “Oh, no. You’re rejected, too.”
Getting other people’s rejection slips … hmmm … I went for a VERY long walk that day.
- Barbara Ann Yoder on March 20, 2013 at 8:21 pm
  
  Great story, Aine! What a bummer to get the wrong rejection letter and then to get so coldly rejected on the phone. Yikes! I’ll bet you never submitted to that journal again.
  
  Here’s what happened to me: In 2005 I got a rejection letter for a short story that I had submitted in 2004. The envelope was addressed to me, in my handwriting, but the letter inside was addressed to a different writer at a different address. I emailed the editor, told him what had happened, reattached my story, which had recently won a prize, and asked him to take another look. I’d spent years sending my fiction out. I really wanted to have at least one story published.
  
  The editor took the story to his board and they ended up publishing it. Guess what? It was the story I read at the AROHO 2011 retreat, the one that made everyone laugh so hard.
  
  I can’t remember the name of the writer whose rejection letter I received. What if her name was Debbie? Poor Debbie. Maybe her rejection letter keeps getting stuffed into someone else’s SASE. . . . Or maybe she’s Lucky Debbie, Dear Debbie: She doesn’t know she’s been rejected!
Lisa Rizzo on March 23, 2013 at 8:31 am

Barbara – thanks for the humor and the reminder that rejection is part of the writing life. Once I submitted a proposal to a prestigious local reading series with writing sample and writing bio. I got my rejection by email in record time. Then to add insult to injury, a week before the scheduled reading I got another email congratulating me on the upcoming event and instructions about how to prepare. The only problem: my name was nowhere to be seen on the attached event flyer. When I contacted the organizers, they apologized, which of course did nothing to lessen the sting!
- Barbara Ann Yoder on March 23, 2013 at 12:46 pm
  
  Thanks for sharing your story, Lisa. I can see you reading your poetry, and I can hear the applause. Seems like in this writing life, whether our work is accepted or rejected, we have to grin and bear it, again and again and again, and carry on!