The Wayback Machine is Made of Cardboard

[ogre_san]

When my second agent and I parted ways she boxed up my pending manuscripts and sent them back to me. Looking into that box now feels so weird. Frustrated possibility and nostalgia all rolled into one. I don't look at it often, but can't quite bring myself to get rid of it.

Comments

[beth_bernobich]

I don't have any cardboard boxes from my first agent, but I have my archive of emails. I keep them just in case, but they call up so many negative feelings. Anger, because I know now she was lying to me. Frustration with myself, because I kept making excuses for her.

[ogre_san]

Been there, done that. SIgh.

[lnhammer]

So you're saying you're still not quite ready to mine it for salvageable material?

---L.

[aberwyn]

My thought, too, Larry. Is there anything in there that can be made publishable with a little or a lot of revision?

[ogre_san]

Oh, I've mined it. One much revised short novel might even be published one of these years. But most of it will--likely for the best--never see the light of print.

[aberwyn]

I have a novel, also in a box, that I can't bear to throw out even though it's truly awful.