“FULL” DISCLOSURE
Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul/And sings the tune without the words/And never stops at all.
Emily Dickinson
There was this promise on the cool breeze that wakened me after a string of hot days and humid nights that it was going to be a glorious birthday. The sudden shift in the air altered my external world and inner weather. I wasn’t alone in acknowledging this. Among the friends and family who posted wishes on my Facebook wall yesterday, several asserted that the barometer guaranteed a birthday as near-to-perfect as possible. And the day was perfect … long on love and joy. Nothing short of miraculous, given unexpected news of a huge health challenge in the family only days earlier. Reflecting on the beautiful day that had been, I kept thinking, Wow… what were the chances?
Recently I ran across a blog post addressing other chances — those of an agent requesting a “full.” Literary agent Jennifer Laughran provided the numbers regarding what her request for an entire manuscript actually signifies. At the query stage, btw, a whopping 85% of the queries get a form rejection, at best. Another 15% rate a personalized no-thanks. Only five percent of submissions prompt her to request a “full.” (Ms. Laughran had just requested my “full” so, at this point in my reading of her post, my heart skipped a beat, but the agent continued, “I reject almost all fulls… Maybe I liked it but didn’t love it. Maybe I loved it but didn’t think I could sell it. No matter what… almost all of the Full roads end here.”)
Stunned, I stared at the rejection rate for “fulls” on the screen — a whopping 95%. But then a wave of relief washed over me because I no longer need to interpret a returned “full” as being the exception to the rule (a “rule” I’ve only imagined translates to “likely acceptance”). Besides, there’s still a chance. With the hope that a writer is capable of fixing a book’s “deep flaw,” she provides extensive notes and offers the opportunity to re-submit. Blame my lifelong inability to connect with numbers on this cockeyed optimism in the face of a slim chance she’ll ask me to do likewise. Four percent, to be exact.
One percent of the time, she’s willing to offer immediate representation. (She’s quick to add: “This happens almost never.” Yeah, got that.) Given all this info, is there one logical reason to get giddy over the emailed news she’ll read my novel within twelve weeks’ time? After all, she also mentioned that she picked up 16 of her 22 clients in the first year of her career; so it’s a big leap to take on anyone else. Go right ahead and call me deranged. I’m hanging on to the hope that my story could be in that final five percent in the same way, I suppose, that Lloyd, in the film “Dumb and Dumber” hangs on to his when he asks his dream-girl what his chances are of them ending up together:
Mary: Well, Lloyd, that’s difficult to say. I mean, we don’t really…
Lloyd: Hit me with it! Just give it to me straight! I came a long way just to see you, Mary. The least you can do is level with me. What are my chances?
Mary: Not good.
Lloyd: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?
Mary: I’d say more like one out of a million.
[pause]
Lloyd: So you’re telling me there’s a chance… *YEAH!*
There’s a chance, always a chance. When you get right down to it, it’s about expecting miracles, whether the statistical probabilities relate to selling a book or reversing a prognosis. These days, in our neck of the woods, we’re singing the tune without the words instead of focusing on the numbers. Good for a body. Not to mention the soul.
(Michele Young-Stone kept singing through hundreds of rejections; here, for all my long-suffering fellow scriveners, is her homemade video about one journey and its happy ending. I mean, what were the chances?)
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