Goodbyes

The stages of grief are so well-known they've joined the armchair psychologist's lexicon. However, if you've experienced grief, you've probably noticed the moment you passed through each stage, how you can still fluctuate between them. Sometimes, when you think you've reached Acceptance, you start Bargaining again. Or you're mired in Bargaining and slip back into Denial.

In the arts, I've noticed that every rejection catalyzes a mini grief-process. You see the email notification and your heart flutters to life. Maybe this will be a yes. Maybe you were right to rally yourself to submit this piece to this agent or press or magazine, and this was absolutely a chance worth taking. Once you open the email and see the classic fluff about how many pieces were received, how difficult it was, etc., you skim the blurb for the words "happy" or "unfortunately", "included" or "at this time". From there, this pattern usually follows (rough timings based on my own reactions):

• Denial ("no, they can't have rejected me. I worked so hard") - 5 seconds

• Anger ("why not me? What kind of crap did they accept?") - 2 minutes to 2 hours

• Bargaining ("please, can the next result be an acceptance? If this industry is so subjective, surely someone will like it, right? Maybe a restructure, a new scene or a total word count reduction is the answer") - 10 hours to a week

• Depression ("I've only been accepted by journals that accept anyone who can type the word 'the'. I'm mediocre. I'm wasting so much time playing pretend. People only believe in me because they haven't read much of my work") - 2 weeks to several months

• Acceptance ("Maybe this piece just isn't ready yet, and I'm not emotionally ready to edit it or handle rejection. I'll give it some time and focus on other things. I've submitted to so many places; surely one of them will believe my words are worth publishing") - an instant.

Following my previous post, I sent out a slew of queries to literary agents for my first novel. 2025 would be the year I restored my confidence and pitched as fervently as I did in 2022.

One agent rejected me within an hour of receiving my query. Another within a few days. Given most agents' review timelines are between two to four months, and these agents did publish that timescale on their websites, such instantaneous rejection sent me straight to Depression and, I think, Acceptance. They really don't like my novel. And no matter how I tweak, restructure and pitch it, its core topic is something the industry thinks no one wants to read.

Of course, when I pitch it to anyone in an informal context, they ask me when it'll be on shelves. They say it's something they'd love to read, that there aren't enough books realistically depicting male mental illness, the impacts of toxic friendships and the uncertainty of memory available at the moment. Sure, they're stroking my ego, but what's kept me going for so long is that belief that the readers are out there, and that it's up to me to get the pitch right, to prove this novel's urgency to the industry. I've failed to do that.

And I accept my failure, for now. Acceptance is not a happy ending, but a sign that you can mould your life around grief and move ahead. I've decided to do just that and, with a heavy heart, put Lighting a Blurry Night away for now. Writing this book is a feat I'm immensely proud of. I love the story, how it's evolved, all the feedback I've received and the bits I've untangled and reworked to fit them more neatly into the wider narrative. But if I could do it all once, I'll certainly do it again.

The benefit of moving on now is that I have my spec-fic project waiting in the wings, ready to be called onstage. An ingenue as optimistic and overflowing with potential as LABN once was. Terminal Lucidity could be the slightly more conventional piece that grips an agent, rather than the literary mess that kept calling to me over the past decade.

Decade. That word sends me back to Anger, to Depression. What the hell was I doing for a decade, other than trying to write in between building a career and pursuing other passions with equally middling success? Why do I feel like I've wasted so much time flailing about, dreaming of book launches and interviews and envying the nepo babies who get their novels represented and published, no questions asked? Did I not use the resources at my disposal to try, every day, to get my debut novel into a reader's hand? I feel like I'm abandoning someone before I'm ready to say goodbye, but I'm not getting any younger and have so much more to write.

It's ironic—how this novel was born out of my inability to say goodbye, to truly let go of people I love, and now I'm just walking away. But I return to Acceptance because I have to. Because if I don't focus on what's next, I'll spend the ensuing decade embittered, wallowing in my ideas and obscurity and doing nothing with them. By knowing when to quit, or at least pause, I feel more empowered than I have in quite a while. I'm ready to spend hours shaping this story, drafting chapters and resisting every doubt that compels me to walk away.

So in the coming weeks, I'll be posting a backlog of book reviews. I've been doing a load of research for this second project—more than I did for LABN—and I think you ought to read these books as well. I'm excited. I'm crying. I'm trudging ahead.

Now, as my efforts to publish Lighting a Blurry Night are on hiatus, I'm going to be petty/arrogant and share some out-of-context quotes that I'm proud of. Consider this a preview to something you might never see. And we both know why.

• "Look, the line between voyeurism and loneliness is almost invisible at this point. Maybe there isn’t really a line; it’s a question of which-comes-first."

• "God, I hate when it happens. It’s like all the parts of myself I’ve collected after the last panic attack just fall from my arms and smash into even smaller fragments. You don’t seem to believe me. I don’t think Alice believes me either. I barely believe me even as it’s happening."

• "Cynicism is just as blinding as optimism, you know."

• "But I guess, if you do remember it, if you do hold on to an important time in your life and the people who made it important, celebrate. Tell those people you remember them. It means you still care, even if to them today is just December 4th."

• "Wanting is passion. It’s longing for presence even after they’ve said hello. People leave you wanting in the silences between their words."

• "I recall our time together so often that the memories are wearing away, like a rip in a shirt or pages in a beloved book. I don’t know if they’re looking grimmer because I won’t let them go, or because I’m allowing hindsight to teach me a lesson you can’t."

• "The words of a living man scan differently than those of the dead."

• "When you’re a bystander, you confront your empathy head-on and ask yourself, ‘what can I actually do?’ Somehow, through moral disengagement or whatever, you convince yourself you’re powerless, just as powerless as the victim"

• "If I am flesh and so are you, then death is just a word."

• "[unsheathes knife] We’re told there’s nothing beyond this moment. Confusion and darkness. But you, you found out for yourself."