mombrain

The Stages of Rejection

Just as four stages of grief accompany a major loss, MomBrain is here to tell you about the stages of emotion that accompany writerly rejection. This is because a Senior Editor at a Very Large Magazine in NYC has informed MomBrain that her writing is awkward, terrible, uninformative, and bad (her exact words). Then she killed my piece and told me not to contact her ever again.

The last person who rained editorial brimstone around my ears was Mr. W, my 11th grade English teacher who failed my term paper because I was obviously a plagiarist. (How else to explain the use of the word "bucolic," which no 17-year-old would know?) He never did believe me, and only grudgingly raised my grade to a D when I offered to change the word to "pastoral."

But I digress. I have spent the last week gazing at my belly button, crying in my soup, and shaking my fist, remembering every editorial slight I have ever suffered. But I did not waste this experience - oh, no! As every writer knows (even us bad ones), everything is material. So I took notes, just for you. If you are a writer and an editor rejects your work, you may experience the following emotions:

STAGE 1: Disbelief. (What the?) You may experience numbness, shock, or a prolonged out-of-body feeling. MomBrain floated above her own head for several hours.

STAGE 2: Suicidal Intent. (I suck.) Humiliation and self-loathing may accompany visions of your writing tacked to a lunchroom bulletin board, with a pack of editors splashing ramen noodle broth on it as they double over laughing. This may be a good time to ask your partner to hide all sharp objects.

STAGE 3: Murderous Rage. (You suck.) How much does a hit man cost? Does her boss know she treats writers this way? Is it worth $18 to deliver dead roses? Again, hide the sharp objects.

STAGE 4: Peace that passeth understanding. (Om.) You begin to believe your friends who tell you how wonderful you are, even if they are liars. You resolve to take the high road, be the professional, and refuse to stoop to her level. "The best revenge is writing well!!!" you crow, and drag out the novel you started and abandoned during the last NaNoWriMo.

STAGE 5: Reckless abandon. (Screw serenity.) You've already burned the bridge, so what the hell. You blog about it, although you are not so reckless as to name names. Or in Mr. W's case, you give him regular coffee instead of decaf the next time he eats where you waitress part-time.

Blog Book Tour: It's a Girl!

Grade: A+++

I'm immensely pleased to be kicking off the blog book tour for It's a Girl, which was just published by Seal Press. Now, those who know MomBrain know that I read a lot of books, and I can be hard to please. But few books have given me as much pleasure or provoked as much thought as this one.

Disclaimer: I do not have a daughter. I have a son, the (in)famous Little Guy, who has taught me everything I know about Legos and construction equipment. He has also made me realize -- deeply and against all my early feminist training -- that boys really are different from girls. So before I say anything else about this book, I need to apologize to all my friends who have daughters. For years I have carried the smug and secret belief that they had an easier job. After all, they were girls once themselves. Unlike me, the mother of a son, they speak the language. They know the emotional terrain. They have a map. (Pause for hysterical laughter ... now ducking the rotten tomatoes ...)

What I did not realize, until I read this book, is that raising girls may not be harder, but it's so much more complex. I mean, it's hard enough just to raise your kid to adulthood in one piece. But raising a girl also requires opening the Hefty bag of issues that every woman I know carries with her. As for me, I open my personal Hefty bag only during secret, private moments of despair. And I can go for weeks pretending it doesn't even exist. But reading this book made me realize what a luxury it is to untangle my issues with femininity just as I have always done: privately and with little risk to others.

Question: My son loves my soft, squishy, huggable body. But what would I do if my daughter developed an eating disorder, after a lifetime of watching me struggle with my weight?

Question: I'm grateful for the amazing amount of time the Big Guy plays with and cares for the Little Guy. But what feelings of weird jealousy might be stirred by Daddy's little princess?

Question: The Little Guy will grow up to be yet another privileged white male in a culture made for men like him. But what would I tell my daughter about her future as a mother and wife, when I myself feel so betrayed by all those rosy feminist promises?

Reading "It's a Girl" will make me a better friend, a better daughter, and someday a better mother-in-law. So thank you to all who contributed. I am humbled, enlightened, and grateful to you for sharing your experience, which is entirely different -- and more complicated in so many ways -- than mothering a son.