The hardest part of being an editor for Northern Gravy, without a shadow of a doubt, has been all the rejections. I’m no stranger to rejection myself, having written six unpublished novels. I did manage to land an agent, until they folded their agency, but that’s another story for another day.
The point I’m making is that I’ve been on both sides of the coin. I know how hard it is to get a “no”, and how hard it can be to have to be the one who says “no” over and over again.
Now, as Northern Gravy has itself had a “no” to our next year of funding, I wanted to take a moment to talk about what happens after the no.
Trying to get funding for an arts organisation is a little like shopping a story, a set of poems, or a whole manuscript. You carefully consider what they’re looking for, you tailor your application accordingly, and then you sit by your inbox with your fingers crossed and hope like crazy that this one-in-a-million shot works out.
Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. You all know that. But what happens afterwards?
Well, in the case of a manuscript, you’ve got three options. One is fairly obvious: try again somewhere else. Pick it up, dust it off, send it out again with a slap on its bottom for good luck. The dance begins again. Perhaps you give it a little spit and polish or a tidy up first. A little tweak here, a nip and tuck there. If you’ve had feedback on it then this is a bit of a no-brainer, but if not it’s all guesswork really.
The second option, and one I’ve been very tempted with on more than one occasion, is to take it out into the woods at the dead of night and give it a shallow grave. Set it on fire, shred it, or drag it into the little digital desktop dustbin. To hell with it! A pox on all its houses, and all that. Not really recommended, but an option all the same.
The third and final option? This one might be the hardest of all, but it’s also definitely an option. Usually, it comes after the first option’s been explored, but before the second gets too tempting: you carve it up. Look at the parts of it that work, the characters you love, the scenes you think really work. As neat as you can, cut around them, and keep them for another day. Take the skeleton out of the thing and dress it in a new wrapper, or transplant the organs into a whole new beast.
You might be wondering what this has to do with Northern Gravy, coming back to it after that lengthy non-sequitur about burying books in woods or giving them a viking funeral in your duck pond. Well, much like a manuscript, we’re thinking about what we do with Northern Gravy. Do we call it a day, fold it, and think about the good times and the good things we did, or do we rebuild? Do we take what works, make something new out of it, and see if that’s seaworthy?
The temptation is certainly there to call it quits, much like it is after you’ve stared down that thirtieth rejection email from prospective agents. There’d be no shame in putting it to bed now, moving on, doing something else maybe. We had a good run, we did a lot of good. Again, you know all this. But then again, what new shape could this take? What worked, what didn’t, and what might be possible?
It’s all up in the air at the moment. But, to finish on a moment of wisdom, a great troubadour once said “you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” Which is great advice for manuscripts, poetry collections, short stories, literary periodicals and bedsheets.
When it’s time to stop, you know, but don’t throw it all away. You’ll be surprised at what else you can make out of something.
