Writing Poorly

I sent off a children's story and it was rejected by the only agent who could have gotten it published here.

New Zealand as a country is actually one big, small town. 

There is no one else to consider the story if this one agent is not interested and, judging from the fact that she didn't even get the title of my story correct in her rejection letter, she's really not interested.

It was a very New Zealand-y story set in the Southern Alps on a remote sheep station with a kunekune, a huntaway and a trio of keas. 

To any non-kiwi readers, it's a story set in the mountains that features sheep, a pig, a dog and three alpine parrots. 

I feel that it could be salvaged and made into a good little tale if only someone would take the time to help me give it a gentle polish. 

I even had the perfect illustrator picked out- an old friend of mine who I believe is one of the greatest artists alive today. 

Alas, I'll never get to ask him to do me the honor.

I don't know what else to do. 

I have tried to write novels based on real events in my life but the characters were shallow and the dialogue was crap. 

I never thought it would be so hard to write about something that actually happened but it was. 

It was painful and I didn't want to write out all the details. I just wanted it to be done so I could get all the praise and adoration.

It started out in a promising way. 

My mentor and friend Blair Fuller (who helped found the Paris Review) opened his home to a small group of Tomales writers and we would read each other's pieces and offer critiques. I had just had an editorial published in the New York Times and the first two chapters of my story had the shimmer of Steinbeck in the details of modern Monterey. 

But it got worse as I tried to go on. 

Blair passed away, nasty disputes tore friendships apart in the town and my time of living in that superficially idyllic place came to an end.

After the ill-fated novel there was a brief attempt at short fiction, again, based on actual events that took place in New York when I was in my early 20s. 

I tried to capture the urgency and the thrill of the experience but once again failed to tell a story anyone would want to read. 

I sent it off to The Sun and the New Yorker anyway.

Both sent rejection letters. 

The New Yorker was the concise and polite. 

The Sun attempted to be clever and hip in their rejection. 

I imagine the latter being staffed by a bunch of recent college grads who wear dresses from Anthropology or grow  carefully waxed mustaches (or maybe both). 

Individuals who dabble in home beer brewing and only write on old typewriters or in leather bound journals. 

I saw them reviewing my work and shaking their heads sadly. As the guardians at the gate of all future classics, it was their solemn duty to protect the world from stink pieces like mine. But hey, at least they could write a quirky note to let me know I would not be joining their exalted ranks.

What to do now? I don't know. What do I do well? I don't know that either.