Let me start by telling you a tale of two grandpas. My siblings and I called our paternal grandfather ‘Grandpa Long Island’… you know, because he was from Long Island. Our maternal grandfather, who raised pygmy goats, was ‘Grandpa Goats.’ Yes, it’s silly. That’s just how we roll in my family, and I fully expect to one day be known as 'Grandma Bagpipes' or something.
Grandpa Goats spent his seventy-six years writing stories, painting Vermont landscapes in vibrant hues, and playing music with his hippie friends. He passed almost fifteen years ago now, but I still can’t step into my grandma’s house without stumbling upon some trove of pastel drawings he did, a poem he wrote in a language he made up, or perhaps a mysterious instrument of his own invention. With a quick YouTube search, I can listen to the songs he recorded, belted out in his strong tenor vocals. He died flat broke, but he was a happy man… with a mountain of creative work left behind that his next of kin had to meticulously sort through over the course of years.
Then there was Grandpa Long Island. He smoked a pipe, collected Steiff dolls, and had a great fondness for German Shepherds. That’s all I can really remember about him. He didn’t talk much about himself, never even told anyone he was dying of cancer. It just happened one day. And it wasn’t until about twenty years later that one of my aunts came across a manila folder hidden away in his personal effects. Inside were five or six hand-drawn comic strips Grandpa had written back in the '70s entitled The Good Shepherds, which followed a family of—you guessed it—German Shepherds. The anthropomorphized characters shared names with his real-life family; the dad in the comics even smoked a pipe, just like him, and dispensed fatherly wisdom to his young pups. Damn, it was cute. The drawings were a bit amateur, and the little stories about the Shepherd family’s foibles weren’t always perfectly executed. But it was a noble start—a seed of something wonderful.
Then, at the bottom of the pile of sketches, a letter was unearthed: Thank you for your submission. The editors here at [Newspaper Company] are extremely selective about the comics we choose to publish, and unfortunately…
Well, all you writers probably know what the rest of the letter entailed. The saddest part to me was not the rejection itself. Heck, some of us collect them like baseball cards. No, what I find tragic is that the pile of papers in the manila folder ended there. No more submissions. No more rejections. No more Good Shepherds.
I’ve never felt more connected to Grandpa Long Island than when I read that decades-old rejection letter. I haven’t managed to get any of my work published either, be it my poems, short stories, or full-length novels. But where we differ is that I couldn’t stop after one rejection. Yes, I’m still just a hobbyist writer who can’t make it past the querying stage. But so what?
Some might take exception to my use of the word hobbyist, considering it “less than” being a professional author. Hobbyists certainly get paid less than professionals, but there’s nothing less than about a fulfilling creative outlet that brings one joy. The fruitful life of Grandpa Goats proves that; the riches he earned were made of something far more valuable than money. In the end, most of us will have to be content with remaining hobbyists, doing what we love for the pleasure alone and adding more rejection letters to our collection all the while. If you had a crystal ball and knew that to be your fate, my friends, would you quit? Would the coming years of joy and fulfillment mean nothing? Would you regret the time you'd already spent? Would your manila folder be forever hidden away?
Personally, if I die unpublished despite all my hard work, I will not regret the time spent. However, I will regret my time if I don’t spend it doing what gives me joy and fulfillment. Sure, I’d love to earn a buck or two for all the work I’ve done, or at least a little recognition, but much like Grandpa Goats, my drive to create is not contingent on it. I do it for the joy alone.
So, fair warning to my future grandchildren: Be prepared for the mountain of creative work Grandma Bagpipes is going to leave behind for you to meticulously sort through. I don’t know how much there will be by then, but I promise you this: It will be far too much to be contained to a single, forgotten manila folder.