DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS
Having received twelve rejections - although not that many - it forced me to consider how best to proceed. Having read between the lines of some of the few encouraging rejections and trying to add or subtract hopefully more effective content and form it dawned on me that a key problem was my increasing discomfort with my agent.
Fearing letting her go but fearing more staying with her feeling the negative way I was - finally motivated me to make a clean break. After doing so my feelings were mixed. Relief was the first validating I had done the right thing for me. The second was falling into a pit of lassitude and negative inertia.
If I was to continue - no option - then I had to generate a list of potentially synergistic agents. Althought eh goal was obvious I couldn't rouse myself into sustained action. Depressing. Then it hit me. I was once again in the grips of my life log rescue fantasy. I want to be invited by some agent to be part of his or stable of authors. This meant I would have to own up to the reality that I lazy. If I was to be in control of my destiny I would somehow have to galvanize myself into action and do the required scut work - detail by fine detail - to obtain my objective.
Wait a moment I said to myself. As a psychoanalyst I knew that this explanation was too simplistic. A better one is that my negative inertia is motivated lazyness - that is I was in a state opf quintessential resistance. Resisting what? All resistance is motivated by the need to avoid experiencing overwhelming anxiety. Anxieity about what? The usual fears associated with being creative: fears of success/ fears of failure and everything in between.
This self analysis forced me to come to terms with my stuckness and what I would have to do about it. To proceed I would have to put myself in gear and be willing to face my fears - whatever they are - and walk right through the anxiety. Experienincg my conflict and making a choice as to what to do about it resulted in a resurgence of energy.
With this realization and the accompanying resurgence of energy also came a stream of ideas as to how best to proceed. The first of these was to consider putting the bulk of my energy into trying to publish my completed forty year invesitgation about the nature and uses of meaningful coincidences (synchronicities). For years I have been holding back from attempting to publish this original work that should have wide appeal.
Voila! Great idea.
Next thunder bolt. See if there are some books that help potential authors write effective proposals. My initial reaction to this idea was to scoff at it. Hadn't I already learned what goes into effective proposal writing? But having failed so far I reasoned maybe I am missing something vital that I don't know anything about as I haven't yet been exposed to it.
Sure enough I found three excellent books exactly on this topic. The first of these is a true gold mine. It is: Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction - and Get It Published, by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato. It is one of those books wherein there are few pages on which I don't underline what I experience as brilliant advice.
For example as to the demand for books like I want to publish, Rabiner says:" As a literary agent who sells virtually only serious non fiction, I can assure you that Ican't get enough good serious nonfiction projects to meet publisher interest." I shivered when I read this feeling as though she was talking directly to me.
So I have decided to split my energy between attempting to find an agent to help me publish my academic book: DYMISTFYING MEANINGFUL COINCIDENCES (Synchronicities): The Evolving Self, Consciousness Expansion , and The Creative Process,and my Memoir - ONE MAN's ODYSSEY: The turbulent Beginnings of Treating Drug Addicts in the Sixties.
I'm glad I have waited so long to get to this point as I am feeling more inspired, grounded, and clear as I ever had to continue the journey to publish my work. I also concur with Spinoza's sage advice: "Anything worth accomplishing is as difficult as it is rare."
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