Oh, and here it is.
He went back. He actually went back there…to Briarwood Quarterly. Maybe it was a month later. I don’t know.
Drawing upon a 45 year old memory while trying to fictionalize it ain’t easy (I feel like I should add, Bub.) This
time he went empty-handed however. After prying himself from the car, he crunched his way across the
almost endless graveled driveway and up the gritty stone steps and entered the building with the loaded gun
of disgrace pressed firmly into his spine. As he marched down the hallway you could hear the squeaking of
his sneakers upon the freshly wax-ed floor. He arrived at her door and kno-kno-kno-knocked. This time when
she shouted, somewhat distractedly, “Min…” he entered, slunk over, stood before her, head down. Contrite is
a nice word.
She looked up from what she was doing. She pursed her (lovely) lips. She leaned back in her (lovely) solid
oak chair (squeakily) and thought a bit. She leaned forward (squeakily) again and, while drumming the rubber
end of her pencil on the desk (the pencil, her desk), raised both eyebrows in question, ‘You again?’ She may
have then rolled her eyes about wildly like a sick cow, I don’t know, I can’t say for certain, but I think Vincent
would have remembered if she had.
The box of junk he’d abandoned there previously was sitting nearby, over against the wall, under a slightly
opened window…gloating. She got up, went over, picked it up and placed it (with a thunk) upon the desk. She
pointed at a chair with the soft end of her pencil as if to say, Have a seat. Then she said it. “Have a seat,” she
said, as she took her own. “This may take some time. Time I don’t have,” she added with a hint of
exasperation.
She picked up the first page, looked at it. She read a bit then put it back in the box without comment. She
closed her eyes for the very briefest moment before slowly taking in a deep breath. Much to her credit, she
did not shake her head wearily.
“OK,” she said, “this is what you need to know. BUT, briefly,” she cautioned. “From now on: double spaced
throughout—we need the room for editing. And give us an inch and a half all around, at least an inch and a
half. Keyword up here, Your name opposite. MALPUS. PAGE NUMBER. You can put the page number with the
keyword if you wish. Mindless Drivel, SLASH, page two; Mindless Drivel, slash, page three. OK? Now…”
She turned the entire stack over and flipped the last page face up. Scanning it she laughed. “What’s this?
Your last sentence is ‘He’d thought he had.’ ?” She pulled the previous page and read a bit of that and
laughed. “Very nice. I like a sense of humor…especially at the end. It’s a nice idea. However,” she said
leaning toward Vincent, “it’s not a bad idea to get your reader to like you from the beginning…OK? Now, exact
word count, here.” She tapped the paper.
Vincent looked confused. “You see, Mr. Malpus, we have to look at it in terms of layout. All your good work is
nothing more than column inches to us. Do you know anything about specing type? Lead? Justification?
Kerning? Pica...in either form? Do you recognize an elite face when you see one? Mr. Malpus,” she sighed,
“do you know WHY so many literary publications publish so much poetry?”
“Eating stones..?” Vincent ventured quietly.
“Eating stones?”
“Isn’t Pica when a kid eats sto…inedible stuff?”
“Well, that’s a third form; if I’m not mistaken there is also a rodent, but I was talking about measuring a line of
type. Let’s just go back to exact word count. OK,” she smiled a little forced smile, “but briefly. Count every
word, every word, for twenty lines. Divide by 20, multiply times the number of lines per page, multiply times the
number of pages and you have your exact word count. In your case I’d estimate about 800,000 words. Name
goes here. John Malpus. Malpus? What kind of a name is that? Scottish? Greek? I’m not sure I’ve
ever…Name address and phone number, Mr. Malpus. OK?”
“NEVER send anything without a SASE…self-addressed, stamped envelope. Correct postage please. In your
case an envelope clearly would not do, send us a crate. And, BEFORE ever sending anything, it’s
really a very good idea to send a query letter. Don’t just show up here like you did and drop your work, like
you did, on the editor’s desk, like you did, and expect anyone to take the time to explain the way things work,
like I just did--it’s not going to happen.” She cocked her head to see if he got it.
“Query letter. Get the editor’s name and title correct. Form, simple sweet: ‘Dear Miss Toothsome, I have a little
piece of 800,000 plus words ending in ‘He’d thought he had.’ Would you like to take a look at it?’ Four or five
months later I fire back, ‘Dear Mr. Malpus, we here at Briarwood Press, which has, for forty-seven years,
published no single work longer than 1600 words, would be most pleased to look at your 800,000 plus word
monstrous, single-spaced, unedited, practically unreadable—use a clean ribbon, next time--tome.’ So, then
what do you do?”
“I send it.”
“Yes. You send it. You keep a copy, and you send it. And how am I to discover it in amongst all…” She waved
in the direction of a half dozen cardboard boxes stuffed and overflowing with bulky manila envelopes. “How, if I
am interested, am I supposed to find your work in all of this?”
Vincent shrugged. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.
She took an envelope and wrote ‘REQUESTED MATERIAL’ in one corner and underlined it twice. “Requested
Material, underlined, block lettering, in red ink if you choose. OK?”
“OK.”
“OK, briefly briefly briefly. I have to get back to work. So, I then read your 800,000 plus words, or enough of it
to determine that it’s not for us, and I send you one of…” she looked around on her desk, started looking
through drawers and swung around to look upon the shelves behind her, “one of….” She got up and left the
room. Several long minutes later she returned with a tiny piece of paper and held it up in the air for him to
see. “…one of these. It’s a rejection slip. If you’ve given us the SASE, with appropriate postage…it will arrive,
paper-clipped on top of your very good work without further comment, when it is returned to you. If you haven’
t given us a SASE, you MAY receive this separately. It says: thank you, we’re not interested, keep up the
good work.
The part that concerns you is in the middle of that padding---we’re not interested. Briefly—we are more likely
to show some interest IF you did everything as I’ve told you here just now. Why? It makes our task easier…it’s
a matter of courtesy on your part. If you choose NOT to follow the format suggestions I’ve offered you, we may
use that as cause enough to reject your work without consideration. That means without looking at it. Thank
you for coming in…again…Mr. Malpus. (She placed one hand on his box of 800,000 plus words.) You can
leave that with me; it’s been a pleasure; I’m sorry I don’t have more time. If nothing else, let me say, I like your
ending. You may or may not hear from us… probably, being honest with you as I have been so far…not.”
She looked at him. “Don’t look so sad, Mr. Malpus. Believe me when I tell you that this is far better treatment
than you might reasonably expect to receive ever again.”
Vincent stood up. “Am I wasting my time?” he asked timidly.
“I don’t know. We’ll take a look.”
“I’m kind of…driven to do this.”
“I can see that.”
He stood still (and you may take that either way.)
“Don’t expect too much.” Molly Toothsome said. “For what it’s worth, Chance plays a big part in what you’re up
to. No matter how good you may be, there are always people out there who are worse—a LOT worse—and
who are getting into print every day, while your work lingers. More vexing still, some of them may even make a
living at it. It will drive you CRAZY … if you let it. And, despite the common wisdom, insanity won’t improve your
position. Neither will alcohol. In a very real sense, what much of the publishing industry does has nothing to do
with writerly talent. I offer you this good advice for free.” She smiled, “Thanks for dropping in.”
Vincent sat inside the old green Dodge, his peaceful ignorance completely overthrown. He had no idea that
woman had just handed him the keys to the kingdom…(circa 1966 of course). Ever idiot-hopeful, he smiled.
He sat. He thought. Had he learned anything? He'd thought he had. For a moment there, he'd thought he had.