Hope in the Mail

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  Clearly, what I really needed was therapy.

  Turns out, writing is great therapy.

  The first novel I wrote was an epic clash of good and evil. Weighing in at 627 pages, it had thinly concealed names, caricatured players, and a very visible ax to grind.

  Yes, it was terrible.

  But I didn’t know that!

  I also didn’t know anything about publishing.

  Well, other than that most publishing houses were located in New York City.

  But now I needed to know! I had a masterpiece to place!

  This was before you could query editors or agents or submit samples online. I got some preliminary information about the submission process by reading back issues of Writer’s Digest magazine, then went to the library, checked out a book called Literary Market Place, perused it for friendly-sounding names, and started shopping my manuscript.

  Compelling query letter—check!

  Self-addressed stamped envelope—check!

  Ignore the no-multiple-submissions rule because who has time for that?—check!

  Not a great (or even good) strategy. And (displaying compounded ignorance here) I was also under the common misconception that getting a book published meant becoming an instant millionaire. Consequently, I thought that placing my manuscript would bring an end to my family’s financial troubles. Or, at least, help out considerably.

  So, yeah. Therapy and financial need. These were the forces fueling me. But then a strange thing happened. Each time someone in New York would agree to take a look at my full manuscript, I’d make a copy of it, box (yes, box) it up, and stand in line at the post office. And as I moved forward in the line, my heart would beat a little faster and I would tell myself that this was it. This editor was going to read and love my story. This editor was going to send me a million bucks and my family’s financial troubles would be solved.

  And when it was my turn at the counter, I’d give the box a quick kiss for luck, pay the postage, and walk away with a little spring in my step.

  Outside, the world felt renewed with possibility.

  Things were going to change!

  We were not defeated.

  Hope was in the mail.

  I put hope in the mail for ten years.

  Actively and persistently, I sent out manuscripts and queries, and for ten years I was actively and persistently rejected by editors and agents in New York.

  The rejection slips were usually generic—some version of We’re sorry. This is not right for us at this time. But please think of us again with your next project.

  I shoved the slips inside a drawer.

  Over time, they filled the drawer.

  I moved them into a box.

  Over time, they filled the box.

  You’d think I’d have taken the hint: I didn’t have what it took to be published. So why did I keep trying?

  Looking back, I think it had a lot to do with keeping hope in the mail. As my first manuscript was making the rounds in New York, I began working on a second story. Another epic clash of good and evil! This time, though, it was more removed from my own story. Characters were becoming…their own entities. Plot was more…flexible. There was real freedom in that, and I enjoyed it.

  I also began reading about the craft of writing. I read everything I could get my hands on because I wanted to finally crack the code. I wanted to get inside structure and dialogue, pacing and theme.

  So when my self-addressed stamped envelopes started coming back to me with rejections for my first novel, I was disappointed, but not crushed. I’d learned more about craft and could see now that, yeah, the first book was more therapy than literature. I got back to work, thinking, You didn’t like that story? Okay, well, wait ’til you read this one!

  Having overlapping hope in the mail equipped me with the mantra Today could be the day. If I didn’t give up, if I kept submitting, kept learning, kept writing, kept trying, someday someone somewhere would read one of my manuscripts and want to buy it.

  Today could be the day.

  It’s a nice way to live your life, but it only works if you keep hope in the mail. This phrase doesn’t refer to just physical mail or email. Putting hope in the mail means putting yourself—your work, your wishes—out there however you can. It means actively creating the possibility for good things to happen.

  Now, prepare for your hopes to be dashed—because undoubtedly they will be. But when that happens, the only course of action is to pick yourself up, redouble your efforts, and put hope back in the mail. Don’t let rejection or brusque (and occasionally cruel) critiques cause you to close in, close down, or give up. Don’t sit in a dark corner licking your wounds. If you disagree with the opinions of the rejecting party, send your work to someone else. I promise you that over time rejection gets less painful and becomes just part of the process.

  In the case of literature, it’s not science, and I see now that that’s a good thing. There is nothing more ho-hum than a formulaic book. And what one editor may dismiss, another editor right next door may love. So get back in the ring! And while you’re waiting for a reply, shift your focus to a new project.

  Do not wait around.

  Nothing will reinvigorate you more than pouring your energies into something new.

  Another thing that helped me endure ten years of rejection was not knowing it was going to be ten years. For all those years, I had a full-time job, and for many of them I also had two little kids. I got up each morning at five o’clock when my husband left for work, spent the next hour or so writing, then began my real day. I was constantly sleep-deprived. If I had known it would take ten years to get published, I almost certainly wouldn’t have made it.

  But I didn’t know.

  And every day I told myself, Today could be the day.

  And then one day it was.

  Ten years is a lot of rejection for someone to take. And on the long and winding road to the day I finally got a “Yes,” I heard things like “It’s just too hard to get published” and “You have to know somebody in publishing” and “Maybe if you had an MFA, people would pay attention.”

  These, uh, consoling and, uh, helpful statements were tempting to buy into during the many phases of feeling discouraged. Maybe there were just too many obstacles, too many reasons I wouldn’t succeed.

  Any one of them would justify quitting.

  So…what, then, made me keep going? Why did I think that, despite the odds, I could do this?

  I trace the defining moment back to my first car.

  A lot of kids I went to high school with got cars when they turned sixteen. Some got hand-me-downs, some got brand-new, off-the-car-lot, big-bowed beauties.

  If I had asked my parents for a car of any kind, they would have laughed me out of the room. That’s just not the way things worked in our family. If I wanted my own car, I was going to have to buy it with my own money.

  Desperate for a vehicle, I scoured our small town for one I could afford. Taking out a loan or buying something on credit never even crossed my mind. We didn’t do credit. We were taught to only buy what we could afford, and as a student without steady income, what I could afford would be paid for with money from babysitting, yard work, and summer jobs. This meant that what I could afford wasn’t much, but there were three for-sale-by-owner prospects in town at my price point, and a friend offered to drive me around to check them out.

  The first car was a classic Volkswagen Bug, which had a definite cool factor to it. The body looked straight—no big dings or dangling bumpers—but the interior was a different story. It wasn’t just that the upholstery was thrashed, there was a big chunk of the floorboard missing. Like, you could see the ground. You could fit your foot through it!

  When I asked the guy selling the Bug about it, he tried to convince me that it was cool. “It’s like having
a convertible,” he gushed. “Only instead of seeing the sky go by, you get to see the road!”

  Uh…no.

  The second car was no better than the Bug. It looked like a demolition derby car, smashed flat enough that the doors didn’t open. You got in by climbing through a window.

  When we drove to the third location, I took one look at the car and told my friend to just keep driving. It was a faded sky-blue Toyota Corona that had weird spots all over it. From our vantage point, it looked like it had been shot up by mobsters.

  But as my friend was driving by at a crawl, she said, “Earl Scheib, ninety-nine ninety-five.”

  Earl Scheib had television commercials that ran in our region. His style was classic used-car salesman. He was enthused! The best! And he would paint your car for ninety-nine dollars and ninety-five cents.

  I looked at my friend. “You think?”

  She pulled over.

  We got out.

  We circled the car like it might be contagious and discovered that the spots that covered it weren’t bullet holes. They were welts of rust.

  But the interior was in good shape, the car ran great, and the guy came down fifty bucks.

  I gave him my savings, named the car Bullet, and drove home feeling elated.

  And then I learned that Earl Scheib wouldn’t touch my car. “We don’t deal with rust,” they told me. “Even if we did, that thing’s hopeless.”

  And now I felt trapped. I’d just spent my life savings on a car with incurable rust acne. There was no Clearasil for cars!

  My dad, however, told me not to give up.

  He had what he thought was a great idea.

  “Why don’t you just paint it yourself?”

  Now, anyone who has done auto body work will know how absurd my dad’s suggestion was.

  I didn’t.

  The funny thing is, I didn’t think I couldn’t do it—I didn’t want to do it. I knew it was going to be an enormous amount of work and that I’d never use any of the skills I picked up in the process. Like I was ever going to buy a car that needed painting again? I’d been an idiot to buy this thing.

  So, no. I did not want to paint the car myself. And at first, I dug in. Resisted. But Dad wasn’t offering to do it for me, and what choice did I have? Unless I wanted to abandon it or drive around in a car with ridiculous rust acne, I had to face this job.

  I had to learn how to do it myself.

  For most of my life, my dad had owned his own business. It had started in our garage, had grown over time, and was now in an industrial part of town. It had heavy equipment and tools.

  Lots of tools.

  In addition to an air compressor (something he told me I’d need to spray the paint) and an assortment of sanding devices (with an even broader assortment of sandpaper), he brought home (deep announcer’s voice, please) the Milwaukee grinder.

  The Milwaukee grinder had already been through hell. It was dirty red, beat up, and heavy—I’m gonna say forty pounds. It wasn’t forty pounds, but I’m gonna say it was anyway because that’s what it felt like.

  Dad had installed a wire brush on it, just for me. This nifty attachment was a metal cup with short, sturdy twists of steel protruding from the rim. Picture the Scrubbing Bubbles guy gone heavy metal.

  Dad assured me that the Milwaukee grinder would make short work of the rust welts. He also made sure to tell me (and then remind me) that there should be zero rust left when I was done. If I didn’t get rid of every last speck of rust, it would come back. Bubble up. Destroy the universe.

  He ran an extension cord out to the street where my car was parked, gave me some safety tips (basically, don’t kill myself), supplied me with a dust mask and safety glasses, plugged in the grinder, and let me pull the trigger.

  The grinder shook me to the core. It felt like a wild animal, whining and growling, pulling hard on a chain. And when the whirring wire brush touched down on metal, it chewed it up and spit it out. Rust went flying everywhere!

  I’m no wimp. I was pretty scrappy as a kid, and at this point in my life I had some heft to me. I’d recently beat my dad in a family arm-wrestling competition, so I guess he figured I could handle the grinder, because after he’d watched me blast a few welts to smithereens, he left me to obliterate rust on my own.

  Many hours later, the asphalt around my car was a dusty orange, my body was jelly, and instead of rust welts all over it, poor Bullet was now full of holes.

  “Hmm,” Dad said, inspecting my giant auto sieve. “This will take a bit of Bondo.”

  Bondo.

  Bondo is to car repair what Spackle is to wall repair. You know Spackle, right? That stuff you use to patch the hole a baseball or a broom handle or, say, a fist made in a wall?

  You don’t?

  Well, if you live in a place with plasterboard walls, it’s very handy stuff, meant for patching holes left by the removal of nails when repainting a room. You just apply a little to the hole, swipe across it with a putty knife (which is just a small metal spatula), let it dry, and repaint.

  You can also use Spackle to repair larger holes (like from that baseball or broom handle or fist). But bigger holes require patience because Spackle will dry and shrink and crack, and if the hole is more than about half an inch in diameter, it will crater or collapse in the middle. With bigger holes you have to build up support on the edges, let the Spackle harden, and work your way in.

  When you’ve finally patched a large hole and you think you’ve got it scraped smooth with the putty knife, you still have to take the time to sand it, because if you don’t, what looks good as plaster will be revealed to be an ugly patch once it’s painted.

  I came to the Bullet repair with this handy bit of life experience already in my tool kit and set about patching the rust holes accordingly. I Bondo’d and I Bondo’d and I Bondo’d. For days, I Bondo’d. Then I sanded and I sanded and I sanded until I was just so sick of Bondo and sanding that I didn’t care if the holes weren’t perfect. They looked perfect enough to me.

  There was never any doubt in my mind that I’d paint the car its original color—sky blue. I didn’t want to mess with repainting the doorjambs or any of the interior detail, and a two-toned car (with clashing interior and exterior paint) is just wrong.

  We lived in a somewhat rural community with limited options, and our town’s car parts store didn’t have much of a paint selection. When I told the clerk what I was looking for, he produced a can from a shelf by a large, sunny window and assured me a quart was all I needed. A smear of baby blue on the dusty lid served as the only color sample.

  Back at car-painting headquarters on the street in front of our house, I covered the glass, chrome, and wheels of Bullet with masking tape and newspaper. Then my dad set me up with the air compressor, complete with long hoses, a canister, and a spray nozzle.

  We transferred the paint into the canister, and that was the first time I laid eyes on the actual paint.

  It was a bright robin’s-egg blue, almost turquoise.

  I hesitated but then told myself that the paint was just very concentrated and that, like paint in general, it would lighten as it dried. Plus, if a quart was plenty to paint the whole car, the color would thin out. It would be fine.

  I shoved aside my concerns and focused on my dad’s instructions. “It’s all in the wrist,” he told me, pantomiming the way I should wield the nozzle. “You want to go back and forth smoothly, in light layers. Don’t build up too much or the paint will run.”

  I watched his demonstration, then tried it myself, imagining paint spraying from the nozzle. Swoosh, swoosh. I swayed a little, trying to get into the feel of smooth, fluid movement.

  “I think you’ve got it,” Dad assured me.

  He turned on the compressor. I began swaying and pulled the trigger.

  Out came bright turquoise pa
int.

  I tried not to panic. I tried to be smooth. I tried to go in even, light layers. But I was distracted by the color. This was an intense turquoise, the kind you might see on a professional race car.

  It didn’t take long to realize that I didn’t know what I was doing. And it was dawning on me that my dad didn’t either. He’d sprayed paint on walls before, sure, but if you make a mistake on a wall, you can always follow up with a roller.

  This was a completely different situation!

  Then, as I moved around the car, trying to be smooth and go in even, light layers, the afternoon winds kicked up and created a rippling in the paint. Distracted by that, I stopped moving for a moment with the trigger pulled. Now there were drips! And as I hurried to get back into a smooth rhythm, I noticed that the holes I’d patched were showing themselves to be shallow craters.

  This was a disaster!

  By the time I was done, I was heartsick. All that work. All that time. All that money. And what did I have?

  A turquoise turkey of a car.

  For weeks I slumped way down in the driver’s seat as I drove my turquoise turkey around, hoping nobody would recognize that it was me in that car. But what’s funny is, I started having lapses in awareness. I started getting used to the way it looked. From inside it was easy to forget what it looked like on the outside as I focused on the task of driving. The radio blared happy sounds. And at Mach speed, who could possibly notice ripples and drips and craters? Bullet was just a bright turquoise blur.

  Until the clutch went out.

  It was a stick shift, of course. That’s what my parents drove. It was the only practical choice, they claimed. How else would you push-start a car to life if the battery died?

  I honestly cannot tell you how many times I helped push-start the family car. A jump start is fine, but it takes jumper cables and a willing second party who’s game to squeeze their (typically more valuable) car into close proximity to yours and trust that you know what you’re doing (since, usually, they don’t).