Well, at the suggestion of one fellow writer (he writes sports for local media), I today registered with Yahoo Contributors Network to post my unpublished original stories in a non-exclusive format online for people to view. Admittedly it seems a bit desperate, considering the story will need to get 1,000 view before I'm paid even $1.50 for that web traffic. I'm spreading the word thought my usual news channels including this blog today, but the story's not ready for viewing quite yet. Yahoo needs to review the content of my 4,800-word space opera vampire adventure story first and then it will be available for reading by anyone. I'll put the address and other details in a follow up to this post soon. The story's title is "Blood Guardian," the tale of a vampire vigilante/former prostitute living on the planet Nightshade in the far future who uses her abilities to slay criminals and protect innocent people in her home city Rainbow Circle. Learning the local government has hired hunters to eliminate the growing vampire murder problem and barely escaping such hunters, our heroine is offered a chance by her mentor to leave the planet Nightshade for greener pastures elsewhere - but which path will she choose is presented in the remaining story.
Yes, I realize the above post title is strange, but it's something I often say about self (don't know if others ever hear me saying it) and to self almost daily. As a statement, it encapsulates my existential dilemma for becoming professional in the profession I still seek entry within looking from the outside like so many millions of others in my position. So, allow me to elaborate for the slower among you to catch on.
I am not now nor have I ever been what is known in this world as a "natural born salesman" when dealing with other people. I am neither a good nor confident public speaker, feeling too self-conscious whenever forced to address strangers in a group as the center of attention. In fact while having to speak in such a setting I want nothing more than to be able for my spirit to leave the body and leave my mouth running on autopilot and return once the speech is concluded so the body can depart the podium or wherever I was speaking. The suspected Asperger's Syndrome means I cannot read people well when meeting them. I don't know when I'm boring someone with matters of interest to me and not the other person. I'm not good at detecting lies and shady behavior (costing me my childhood home in 2011-2012) or sensing danger (in fact I am paranoid to the point of seeing danger where it might not exist). I cannot get close to women I am in love with, being unable to do this throughout my lifetime, and refuse to take another man's woman he isn't married to (of course I will never willingly break up a marriage just to get someone I love from another man). So this impediment and disability means I will never willingly take any job where I have to sell something for earning my survival through a salary or hourly wage. If I had to work on commission, I'd starve. The infamous Alec Baldwin speech from the movie Glengarry Glen Ross would not motivate me to try harder because I don't believe I can sell anyone on anything I'm peddling. I'd have walked out after he was done cussing me and the other real estate salesmen out had I been in that situation. I don't take motivating abuse well, however well-meaning the person giving it. Unfortunately in the crowded glut of fiction writing and ideas from the many minds currently successful or the many more unsuccessful writers out there, my work cannot apparently stand out in any significant way from the rest of the pack. This means I am forced to try harder for getting any attention paid to my fiction novels or short story collections (admittedly I only have one of those in print so far). But I lack the natural instinct God gave other folks for knowing how to shamelessly or otherwise promote myself as John X. Grey author to this world and everything I've ever tried toward that end has FAILED (sometimes miserably). Now I know someone reading this self-pitying column will (and others have before at earlier posts) suggest ways I can stimulate my potential reading followers. They will suggest things like going to science-fiction conventions, giving away free a few free copies to potential readers (done that before - it didn't really work), selling my books directly in various venues at a small profit since I can order copies from CreateSpace at publishing cost plus shipping before the retail markup at places like Amazon.com, etc. The main obstacle to any of that right now is I'm too poor financially to put any serious money into self-promotion, say like getting my last two self-published books on Kindle (it costs $69 per title) or getting the short story collection expanded distribution (costs $25 and getting it for earlier books did not help their sales significantly). I cannot afford to travel hundreds of miles for meeting people in venues receptive to my work right now. Other suggestions for raising my profile on my own might include starting a newsletter with the few contacts I made giving away free book copies last year or making connections at message boards, chat rooms, etc. Well I'm not that great at socializing or meeting new people even electronically due to my chronic social inhibitions from the Asperger's. Plus my often abrasive personal opinions probably put people off to ever considering me seriously as a fiction writer. Plus I'm sure there are some out there who've read my work (mostly in short fiction anthology collections from various small presses since 2009) and judged my style or other elements to be inferior and unworthy of any further consideration for reading. I know some editors disliked various aspects to my particular style (others liked it, but sadly never anyone with big connections in publishing). I also fear trying to suck up (kiss ass or whatever term fits) to anyone more successful as an author because of the fear I'll come across as a crass opportunist using that person to get ahead myself while seeming shallow and superficial. The only thing that could change this difficult equation in which I seem to come out at zero every time is what is known as the BIG BREAK - that unexpected fortunate opportunity to prove myself to someone or some entity in publishing as at least a potential talent with future greatness at my work capturing the public's shallow attention span (in other words the next great best seller). Unfortunately my luck in life (I don't actually believe in luck any more than Obi Wan Kenobi did in the Star Wars films) seems mostly bad or unfortunate. As I began this column with the title above, I truly believe I couldn't sell a man literally on fire the bucket of ice water that would solve his problem that moment, probably couldn't even give it away to him I'm so inept at persuading anyone of anything. I want to be a charismatic speaker, but God did not gift me with that ability - far from it. So, unless that unexpected lucky break appears over my head (of course I'm usually blind to good opportunities, so I'd probably miss it anyhow), John X. Grey seems relegated to the circular file (numbered 13) as a potential working writer and there seems to be nothing I can do about it as thing stand right now. I am reaching the end of my rope living a life with no hope about realizing a long-time ambition.5/9/2013 Today, I died a little bit more inside with an unwelcome e-mail that contained the usual rejection I've come to expect from a publishing industry that sees no great commercial potential in my ideas that languish in books few if any people actually buy or read. I've been working at becoming a professional fiction writer now for close to 14 years and with the latest rejection I received today have no hope left my continuing amateur status will ever change. Let me first relate the latest mindless cruelty inflicted upon me from the editors at TOR UK and then elaborate further on my personal situation and status as the horror story it has become.
Back on January 30, I discovered that the British branch of TOR Books in the US was accepting unsolicited novel manuscripts from self-published writers for some unspecified period in 2013 due to the difficulties so many face in getting their books accepted. Thinking I'd give marketing my first science-fiction space opera novel one last try after years of its rejection and several revisions to the original manuscript since 2001, I submitted the first volume to a proposed five-volume epic story Goram - The First World (originally titled The Planet at the Center of the Universe) with a subtitle of The Prophecy of Kolab (originally Arrival of a Prophecy) for the first volume. The manuscript ready as it would ever be, I had hopes maybe different editors from ones that rejected my work before might have a more positive view of the story idea's commercial viability. Sending it on January 31 as a Word file following TOR UK's guidelines, I read at the website they took up to 12 weeks to reply and then would respond only if interested in the submission. Weeks went by and in late March I sent them one of my self-published novels since the page indicated already self-published work could be submitted as well. It was my other worlds fantasy story Sister Helena of the Sword. Then in early April I sent The Circle of Light, my self-published superhero fantasy story. By April 25, I had assumed Goram - The First World: The Prophecy of Kolab was rejected for any consideration at TOR UK and had no hope any other works I submitted would be taken seriously there. Nothing unusual - I have the long list of previous rejections to my novels that drove me into trying the self-publishing experimental route back in August 2011 for the first time. Then imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from TOR UK about my first novel submitted to them this morning. Had something finally changed to all the bad luck and mistakes my writing career had suffered from almost since the beginning of its first fruits in 2000? Would this finally be the big chance I'd awaited for more than a decade? Of course not - opening the e-mail with great trepidation, as I suffer rejection with far less grace than the average person who can take such setbacks, I found the brief sentence indicating my novel would not be advanced into any publishing stage with the usual best wishes closing every writer takes and tries again with the next market. This seemed like a cruel cosmic joke on me. Their site said if a writer didn't hear back from them after 12 weeks consider the submission rejected. As of April 25, I had considered it exactly that and forgot about the submission entirely. WHY did TOR UK even bother to send that e-mail? The prior silence was indicative enough of the outcome I received. And now for something completely different - no, actually it's related to my ongoing hard struggles to survive in a life that keeps kicking the shit out of me at every turn it seems. Being 45 and considered over the hill by a working world that has no use for a college graduate with the useless Bachelor of Arts degree in History and an unfinished attempt at securing a Master's Degree in the same field a few years after that, I can only get marginal dead end jobs with my spotty past employment history, apparently having Asperger's Syndrome making my mind impractical about building up a good work history being a silly-hearted dreamer wrapped up in an ambition he cannot realize if he lived to be 100. The job I hold now pays a paltry (in current US economic terms) $7.50 per hour as a research interviewer for the NYC firm Abt SRBI in their local Huntington, WV call center calling strangers on the telephone to get their cooperation in taking surveys about travel, health, political opinion, etc. I won't get my first raise for two more weeks but it doesn't matter anyway since I'm almost out of money for the gasoline I need to commute 19 miles for this job. Plus with my social anxieties and the AS making me unable to function as a people person in sales or service jobs, this job is sometimes too much to bear for the 20 or more hours and 4-5 days I must work at it for survival. Of course friends advise me to hang in there and persevere at my dream, but this standard advice just isn't working to motivate me any longer. I may lose this job if I miss even one scheduled shift being considered a probationary employee until the first raise. But there's no public transit option for evening shifts in my largely rural area and the Saturday options are somewhat limited. I refuse to drive to work in a car that might sputter and stop along the way from an empty gasoline tank I cannot afford to refill. I cannot even buy any food or other supplies right now because all the little money I have left must be saved for gasoline to reach a job that pays me too little to survive. And don't say get another job - that one was the only one out of a few dozen I tried applying for and the five I received interviews with that hired me. I have no other options. I cannot do direct sales jobs - no charisma or self-confidence to be a success at pushing someone else's product whatever it is. IF I had to work on commission I'd starve. I couldn't sell a burning man a bucket of water, much less even persuade him to take it for free. My bank is robbing me of $8.95 every month because I cannot maintain some artificial minimum balance in the checking account and I've lost $53.70 that could've bought me more gasoline today in the past six months due to this foolish policy that probably puts Christmas bonuses in the executive's pockets. I could switch banks but won't have any money to deposit until Monday. So as you can see from what I've written, my personal life is a lonely mess of near-bankruptcy, unpaid debts (a few thousand I still owe medical agencies for a week's stay at a local hospital last year and all the services they provided I could not afford), and a dead-end job I might lose soon because I cannot afford the commute to it any longer. Even if a promised reimbursement check from the State of Ohio would arrive sooner than 9-13 days from now and if there was enough left from my next paycheck (the smallest one I have ever received from Atb SRBI due to cut hours and shift cancellations) after paying the overdue portion of my rent from May 1 and my local water utility bill a few days late, I don't know if I'll have enough to survive on in the immediate future much less pay for fuel to drive to a job I hate. My Asperger's condition makes me an all-or-nothing sort of mentality. Either I'm happy doing what I love or I can never be truly happy with everyday living. Disappointments and setbacks other people take in stride, crush my will to live far more cruelly than the do the average neurologically typical person. I've sought out government assistance remedies, against my better judgment and chronic mistrust of powerful institutions, but government aid services move exceedingly slowly in determining whether one is worthy of becoming a ward of the State. By the time they decide I am too nucking futs to be left unsupervised in the next few weeks or months, I could be homeless and destitute with no reason left to live. So you can see how destructive TOR UK's decision to reject my science-fiction novel has proven. I never had any reason to expect them to want my work, but after saying they didn't contact writers whose work they didn't want and then sending me that rejection e-mail today was the spoiled pickle on my rancid crap sandwich of a life. Seeing the unopened e-mail today, I had hoped finally to become the professional author. But no, my work is too flawed or badly written or not good enough or doesn't precisely follow the rules of English grammar or has no commercial potential or whatever the bullshit excuse is for keeping John X. Grey trapped in the legion of rank amateurs who thought he had any talent at writing fiction to try this as a career ambition. I just can't take the crushing disappointment any longer and no one in a position to change that will ever lift a finger to prevent my premature death from terminal failure. I am a natural born loser with no reason left to live. What, you might say, isn't your new book doing well? Yes, but three copies sold and $11.97 in as-yet unpaid royalties will not be enough to prevent my financial oblivion in 2013. As I have said elsewhere anything good that happens in my life seems always to be too little and too late to make any difference, while the bad news seems to crash down upon my fragile mind in waves. I see God as a tough love Father who lets His children fail and suffer the consequences of their bad decisions as the way He shows His love (allowing His Only Begotten Son to die on a cross for some greater purpose being the most illustrative example of this tough love). I admit I cannot manage my life, desires or finances, but He seems content to allow my end for some reason after giving me this life's calling or ambition 15-16 years ago. If one has great faith, you would think this is the sort of sad life's story He would intervene in to turn it around so that person could be a shining example of His power to others, but due to some personal failing I am not considered worthy of divine intervention, even though I've received signs I'm supposed to write as my life's calling. I'm just not made for survival (of the fittest or anything else) in this cruel imperfect world and unless God takes pity and mercy upon me I've not much longer to go left in my life. I cannot bear starvation, homelessness and destitution as my only visible future. Although anyone often visiting this blog might conclude it is the dark stain upon my soul, I take this opportunity to bring good news to anyone stopping by here and show that I'm not an ogre some of the time.
Today (May 8, 2013), I learned when checking about my new short story collection's page at Amazon.com and the CreateSpace member dashboard page that The Orphaned Stories of John X. Grey has sold some copies since its release on May 2 (thanks, Christie and Paul, for your purchases - glad you seem to like what you've read from within those pages so far). It was ranked 304,419 on Amazon. I'm just grateful my fictional offspring have found some bookshelves and homes out there in the wide world. This is the first tangible success this year apart from some of my stories appearing in print within two Static Movement anthologies (A Journey You Say? contains four of my stories - "Beyond the Mists," "Return of the North Wind" and "Sister of Nature" - my Hellstone's Shelter trilogy - and "Freedom's just another Town with nothing left to lose" another 24th Century bounty hunter trio tale featuring the same characters from "Stalking a Myth" in Static Movement's Bounty Hunters anthology. A third bounty hunter tale with those characters will appear in SM's Carnivorous anthology eventually. Noir! contains one of my Jack Petrov Vampire Hunter stories - "Undead out of the Past."). Working to turn my first horror novel (The Nightmare of Aarontown) from its 600+ page current form into a trilogy for easier marketing, I get the courage to persevere at what I've come to believe is my calling from God as a life's labor. Thanks to those who bought a copy and anyone who buys one in the future. This made my day (in what until today had been a crappy week, I'm sorry to confess). Think of all the fun you'll be missing. You won't have John X. Grey to kick around anymore, world.5/6/2013 And with that paraphrase from former US President Richard M. Nixon said after he was defeated in the 1962 California Governor's race to Pat Brown, then being only the former Vice-President but not yet running for President the second time in his life, I begin what might be my last column posted on this site. I know - who gives a rat's ass? I don't any more. Yeah, I should take the lesson of Nixon's remark in saying he was giving up public life after that famous defeat (his second political defeat in an election during two years) as instructive since he returned to run again in 1968 (coincidentally the year I was born) and win a three-way race with Vice-President Hubert Humphrey and Alabama Governor George Wallace for the Oval Office. I am not as lucky (or unlucky if you prefer) as Richard Nixon. I'll surely never be as famous/infamous as that former US President. I couldn't ever become that well-known. I am not great at shameless self-promotion and only want my work to show if I have any natural talent.
But that is just not possible in this imperfect world where slick-talking assholes win all the time and inhibited natural born losers cannot catch the smallest breaks in life. Nice guys finish last and when they have emotional control problems that make them lash out at their tormentors with an imprudent acidic tongue (dishing it out but unable to take it in return) well that defines John X. Grey and the self-pitying man behind that pen name (Edwin Ray Haney) - a natural born loser from the day he was born, never fated to amount to anything different or unique from the remainder of humanity he cannot relate to or understand. Of course I know why I've never been able to make deep connections to other people in the last few months, but cannot prove it's a reality without the permission of the therapeutic culture, the guild of mental health professionals whose skills and talents are not far removed from primitive witch doctors in terms of their understanding the human psyche, throwing drugs and therapy at any problem in the hopes of controlling or hiding it from normal society. I may have a neurological impairment known by some as Asperger's Syndrome - a form of high functioning autism where the sufferer has above-average or better intelligence and normal language skill development, but suffers from social skill deficiencies and physical clumsiness seeming shy and withdrawn. One in 300 may have this genetic problem, mostly men rather than women and often not detected until adulthood because a shy woman is not seen as an odd thing compared to shy men who can't have any normal friendships or romantic relationships due to the social awkwardness in normal situations. I cannot begin to describe the crippling inhibition I feel when forced to socially engage with the outside world. I cannot stand crowded places, some sensations on my ears are troubling (mainly water in the ear canals) or pick up on subtle non-verbal cues from total strangers. I've never even been well-coordinated and have terrible hand-eye coordination making me hate sports as a participant much of my life. But until the last few months or so, I never could understand why I was the way I seemed. For years, especially after a nervous breakdown when age 12 that I somehow recovered from months later, I often asked myself the question "What's wrong with me?" but never had any answer from self or others. People have called me eccentric, weird, odd, insane, a creepy stalker (again due to social misunderstandings where I don't grasp the rules to human interaction like a neurologically typical person). I'm tired of putting up with all the bullshit in life of dealing with people because God obviously made me too screwed up to function as a normal adult. Now that I cannot make enough money in a dead-end job I hate (call center work where rude people refusing to take voluntary surveys by phone hurts my sense of well-being more than an average person's), with a few thousand medical debts left from a procedure last year I could not refuse (due to a severe infection that was making me violently ill at times) the collectors now demand I don't have, unable to pay all my rent this month on the 1st with the next paltry paycheck to cover it thankfully, gasoline expenses to commute to this job running between $3.50-4.00 per gallon in a 15-year-old car that gets only 13 MPG I may no longer be able to even afford soon thus costing me my ONLY source of income (the writing sure isn't paying any bills), I have reached the point that any further struggle to survive is in fact pointless. If writing was meant to be my true calling in life by a just and merciful God, realized in my early 30s a few years after accepting Jesus Christ as Savior, then He has not provided me the resources necessary to realize that as my reality and has left me in continual poverty and economic hopelessness from day to day even though He has all the universe under His command, then I have truly failed Him, anyone who ever cared about me and lastly of all myself. So, to the trolls who lurk out there stopping to read my insane periodic screeds at this page, the well-meaning acquaintances who stop to give me tough criticism and some advice more useful for some normal person, the same people who never comment on my positive messages, political discourses or more harmless writing-related announcements, just think of all the fun you'll be missing from my efforts (unintentional of course) to amuse your minds. Soon possibly you won't have Mr. Grey to kick around anymore. Good riddance, right? P. S. - The one-story ranch house pictured above (with my late father standing in the foreground) from around 2000 A. D. is the place I lost to deceiving people I should never have trusted who acted like they were doing me a favor in 2011. That loss set me on the path of spiraling self-destruction for someone without the social skills to know when he was being taken or even the good sense to know the house should've been sold at a fairer market price months before then. I am a failed person and deserve to die in poverty, hunger and hopelessness soon, all of which bad choices have yielded to this day. Goodbye. To your left is the front cover of what might be my final publication as just another failed fiction author wanting to humbly do that for a living. Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease I once heard some witty person claim (I'm not clever enough to think up something like that on my own). Well, the dying part may soon become true for me after life's adversities have only piled up enough in the past few years. I thought (perhaps foolishly) that after my Christian salvation experience of March or April 1997 I was given by God a new professional goal as my calling in life. Never having tried to write fiction prior to 1997 (apart from scenarios for role playing games which was good training to learn narrative story structure), it was an error-filled period that had some starts and stops until finishing my first novel in 2000 (after ten months work - I am currently converting that long horror novel into a trilogy, but may not finish the revision/conversion before my time on Earth ends - almost gotten book two completed as of this date) and three stories that same year (all since published in one form or another since November 2009). Gradually I completed more novels (usually in one to three months each - unlike the first one that took 10 months to finish as a rough draft) and have 11 finished with a few others to finish (now they may never be finished) and more short stories (even a few poems in the last few years in addition to some I wrote for fun back in the 1980s) - my most productive period during a period of formal unemployment benefits during late 2009 - mid 2011.
Now, I cannot afford to continue living in this world. My part-time job is a dead end joke where I only make $7.50 per hour (maybe a fifty-cent raise in two weeks - but again too little too late) but hate rejection with call center work contacts on the telephone that I only worked 20-hour weeks - much as I could stand - and now that I've been forced to work 30 hours this week, I don't have enough money for gasoline to keep a 15-year-old vehicle (getting a crappy 13 MPG now) taking me to work 19 miles each day. My writing doesn't sell much of the time, I don't know how to promote my career any further after embarrassments of imperfect books released too soon needing more editing than I realized or recognized to strangers as free copies. I don't have the time or money to go out and promote my books - and cannot get hardly any feedback from anyone who reads them (say for example writing even a brief few damned words at Amazon.com on any of the pages with my books sold there). And the only feedback I get here is when I write piss-and-moan columns about how much my love life sucks and predictably unhelpful trolls or well-meaning strangers only remind me how much of a loser I already think I am (based on a lifetime of negative experiences I remember far more vividly than any few or far between happy or good moments). Nothing you people say as feedback about my opinions matters any longer! I just realize all I say here as complaint only adds to my difficulties of shining as a writing talent (I know writing is what God called me to do after an experience two weeks ago, but He gives me no sufficient resources to realize this calling of course). This site and blog page are the dark side to my life, while The Many Worlds of John X. Grey is largely ignored as a platform of my writing career's accomplishments in a crowded cyberspace universe where uncounted millions of others do not stand out any more as writers than I've been able after 13-14 years of effort. I don't know if I could persuade a burning person he/she needed the cold bucket of water I was holding out for dousing the fire. I'm just not a salesman and don't know how to work the writing markets to further my career. Hell, Absolute Write Water Cooler after some troll members complained I wasn't participating enough there and accused me of spamming (LIES - I'm just not much of a networker and will never have anything good to say about that evil echo chamber for some failed authors or pretentious literary authors trapped in academia's English Departments around the world) so I was banned. FUCK THEM ALL AND THOSE STAMPEDING HORSES THEY RODE IN ON! I've been called insane and other similar horrible names by respondents here, even though it may be possible I have had since birth a neurological condition called Asperger's Syndrome. This condition explains why I have few close friends left, only distant acquaintances otherwise, no wife or girlfriend in 27 years as a heterosexual adult, am very clumsy and uncoordinated, have a few narrow interests in life and don't seek out social situations due to extreme awkwardness in such situations. I am not suitable for people person jobs that the world offers me to earn money through, and cannot earn it doing any single thing I love - yes, the world is an imperfect place. So, my first short story collection (13 stories that were rejected three or more times each by various professional rate magazines or anthologies and the editors who believe my fiction work suck sweat off a dead man's testicles and 2 recent-vintage dark poems about my personal loneliness and one major heartbreak from almost 27 years ago) is out there on sale for $11.50 in paperback and will sink faster than a lead balloon among the glut of fiction books existing on the market with a whimper. And to you readers offering me advice - don't tell me I have to be a better businessman in the writing career. I can't do that - years of experience have already taught me I'm only an artist. Now that debts from last year I cannot pay are hounding me to death, life has become too much to suffer any longer. So what difference does it make John X. Grey's writing career will soon die an insignificant death along with the actual man behind it. Don't bother responding to this, folks. I've reached the point where I don't care any longer. Hello, trolls and anyone else bothering to stop by this useless echo chamber of a mind some considered disturbed. For some reason that last bit reminds me of a quote from Mr. Spock in the Star Trek episode "Dagger of the Mind" during a brief exchange about treatment of mental illness with Dr. McCoy while on the bridge ("Interesting, you humans glorify organized violence for forty centuries, yet you imprison those who employ it privately.").
The main problem at the heart of my darkness can be summed up in just one word - rejection. I am battered by that unpleasant reality in everyday life from three directions on a regular basis. First, I suffer rejection in my chosen field of labor - fiction writing - as anyone else who attempts it can attest the experience is painful. But most writers would then say just forget about it (unless receiving with that rejection some constructive criticism that may prove instructional for future efforts) and move on with one's work. I cannot suffer rejection gracefully based on how my neurological makeup was put together imperfectly. I have the usual angered reaction in private to some degree - ranging from a loud outburst to quiet seething hatred for being refused whatever the reason (trivial or genuine). This is never going to change, I suspect. I have an overactive imagination I am trying to make work for me, but obviously errors in grammatical construction, typographical errors and an inability to package my words with inferior cover art (I learned thirty years ago I've no skill at visual illustration when trying to draw some cover artwork) or promote my work only serve to frustrate that vision. I also have trouble making connections with people (always have) and thus suck at what is called networking. This is another handicap toward realizing any success as a writer apparently, meaning any progress in this writing career will have to come through what is known as the rare to impossible "lucky break." The second form of rejection comes through my current regular job - research interviewer at a local call center for Abt SRBI (a NYC-based research firm that conduct surveys for government and private sector clients by telephone). As with the last time I worked in a call center (January - November 2009), the responses from those refusing whatever it is I'm representing in that phone call can vary from cooperative to outright rude. Obviously the latter reactions only serve to further undermine my limited self-confidence as a person in general and reinforce the belief I am not a natural born salesman. I sometimes joke (semi-seriously) I couldn't sell or give away a bucket of water to someone literally on fire right in front of me as that person was being immolated to death. So, each night I call for some survey and get rude responses, I die a little bit more inside but cannot get any better job at present for various reasons (un-provable age discrimination, limited work history through much of an adult life, educational background that only offers limited opportunities in some sales or customer service field but not in the degree's area of study). The only option I have left for some sort of career I'd be good at (in my opinion) is the writing. Unfortunately I cannot convince any major publisher I have the commercial potential to entertain millions with story ideas already or not yet written. The third form of rejection comes from the area I am most criticized about in my past complaints - pursuit of the opposite sex for romantic intentions. Now here is where the lifetime of social difficulties from potential Asperger's Syndrome comes most starkly into play. Since puberty, I've often been unable to communicate any romantic desires or intentions to any girl I was attracted to and it bugs the crap out of me despite being unable to do anything to change that problem. The first crush I ever had moved away before I could ever get the courage to ask her for a date. The second one I could never bring myself to ask being intoxicated by her beauty. The third girl I was attracted to I could not ask out and then lost her to an older boy. The fourth again I could never even hardly talk to because I was fully intimidated by her beauty. The fifth one I asked out on a date after two years of confused feelings toward her (rejecting her attempts at friendship due to that inner turmoil) and losing 50 pounds one summer to impress her - but her rejection crushed my limited self-confidence to the point I never asked anyone for a date in person ever again. I then drifted through college unable to make serious romantic connection with any woman I felt attracted to and after graduate school had practically no opportunities or a few that missed or never materialized. Trying online dating beginning in 2011, I was rejected by any woman who possessed the looks or other qualities I sought in a mate every time. Now let me explain a bit about what sort of qualities I want before you trolls assume I'm after a clone of say Marilyn Monroe. I want someone with dark hair (styled in bangs - something most women don't seem to like these days) and big bug eyes with whom I share at least one or more interests that would bring us together and connect us for a lifetime, hopefully someone rather short or tall than average and who's not heavier than me (I currently weigh between 193-196 pounds - so I'm not exactly fat as through most of my adult life and adolescence). I want someone from ages 29-40 (no one any older or younger). I also cannot marry any divorcee based on Jesus' teachings about marriage and divorce from the Bible and do not want single mothers, divorcees or widows that come with children to avoid baby daddy drama that might occur as a stepparent. I know, people are not custom made in an off-the-rack world. I'm not asking for the perfect woman, just someone who's ideal for me. But apparently according to some commentators here to have a type of preconceived woman in mind who might not even actually exist is madness and judgmental and impractical. Being stubborn, I will not compromise my principles that some find silly. Then, they usually say, you'll be alone for the rest of your life and never get married, especially because you've got nothing going on in life that would attract your soul mate anyhow. And when I react badly to each rejection from a woman by cursing the entire sex with crude expletives and reveal a lifetime of built-up deep-seeded misogyny from all the rejections since early adolescence (combined with the realization how this feminized world during my lifetime has considered all males to be the enemy and works to crush masculinity because it's been a man's world for far too long in those women's opinions) then I get criticism at places like this and am expected to sit there and take negative feedback up the rectum every time without complaint. I'm not wired that way, baby. And so rejection is the one reality that is blocking my career ambitions, frustrating me in my job daily, and has poisoned my soul (along with some social disabilities) when it comes to having any normal heterosexual relationship in marriage. I will undoubtedly continue to behave badly when rejected every time and show a lack of grace and civility as the obvious result. If I was a famous person this behavior would be excused as eccentric or quaint - entertainment in today's brain dead celebrity-worshiping culture. Take this long meditation on the pain of rejection for what you will, dear reader. All I know is I don't accept the fact of rejection in life well and most likely never will. I'm just not a big enough person to absorb the pain, learn from it and move on to try again forgetting how much that rejection hurt in the first place. Today nothing good or special happened in my life. I had a special dinner (at least for me compared to the usual) eaten alone. I had well wishers from among Facebook friends congratulating me on reaching another anniversary year of my birth. Otherwise, it could have been any other day on the calendar. I turned 45 years old - another year older and still the natural born loser I've been for most of my life. I would just like to forget every birthday left to me on this Earth because I believe their celebration is better suited to children wishing they were adults before spending the rest of their lives wanting to be young again.
Today I could not pay a full month's rent thanks to a crappy part time job that does not pay enough and has been too stressful to work more than a minimum 20 hours per week. It'd make a great job for someone in college or who's retired and on a fixed income for making extra money, but not for someone who needs at least $1,000/month in after-tax income to avoid limping from month-to-month always chronically broke. I have to pay the difference (1/3 of what was owed today) in two weeks when I get paid at my job again. It was the only job I could get after three months of unemployment and after several applications that were mostly rejected or ignored. The writing still pays little to nothing. I cannot get my new short story collection or its cover approved by CreateSpace due to problem with first the cover images and then the manuscript's page setup, I corrected them and tried again earlier today, but watch CS give me more crap about the new files tomorrow. Writing is my calling I know now, but this world won't make anything easy about succeeding in it as a profession. In fact the world seems to usually either thwart my efforts or create bad circumstances and act indifference when not rejecting me outright (as a person or a writer). Unless something changes for the better in coming days, I don't know how much longer my sanity can endure, or if the stress of that call center job will kill me at some point (even though I know my purpose in life, living is so hard as to make that purpose pointless in the future). Frankly on the 45th anniversary of my birth I would just as soon never had been born at all. |