(Where Are You? I’m Christina Rivera, debut author of MY OCEANS: Essays of Water, Whales, and Women and Moby Bytes is my series of newlettery notes deep-diving the oceanic kinship of bodies of water and beings. Thanks for signing up for this irregular email in your inbox!)
I did cry when my ISBN number showed up nonchalantly on a book proof.
I cried again when a best friend texted me updates after reading each chapter of an ARC (advance reading copy).
I bawled when I read these reviews from people I don’t know on Netgalley:
But the actual unboxing of my books didn’t hit me, and I can’t fake it.
But what I do have is a wall. A place where I tape up my failures and successes, and sometimes sit on a couch and stare at them. Especially on days when I’m trying to remember why I’m doing everything I’m doing. (Because it certainly *as it turns out* isn’t for money, or fame.) And I think that’s the story I want to unbox today.
I recently showcased these rejections for a Lighthouse class I visited. I enjoyed it too much. Holding up the exhibits to the Zoom screen and laughing (too hard) at my literary trail of tears. But don’t psychoanalyze it. I don’t want to know what that says about me.
Today—a mere seven days before my official pub date of March 15th (a day I hope to spend wandering around the woods; something I’ll substack about on March 14th *we’re using substack as a verb right?*)—I’m too busy to write out the full stories. So instead, I’m just gonna drop the photos of some of my favorite rejections and include captions that are too long, but feel less formal in that soft gray font.
I’m calling this show and tell:
MY DEBUT UNBOXING OF my FAVORITE BOOK FAILURES…
Here we go!
Wait, this poor agent “didn’t LOVE” the writing? Maybe because I was twenty-three years old, had never taken a writing class, and had just banged out 100 TRULY AWFUL pages because I couldn’t talk after walking 1,000 miles of the Caminos de Santiago. I was writing myself back into the real, non-pilgrim world, and the pages belonged in a journal. Not pitched, printed, or read by a professional. But let’s admire the gall!
I can STILL feel the gut punch of this first juried workshop rejection (ten years ago). I remember exactly the turn in the path I was hiking when I checked my phone and read this paragraph. The doubling over in nausea was WORSE than the first time I got dumped by a crush. But don’t you worry, young Christina. This is only the first of HUNDREDS of rejections you’ll receive! In one year alone, you’ll be rejected 100 times without a single acceptance! But it’ll get easier. Because you’ll go numb. That’s better, right?
Omg. I got an acceptance. Actually, I got waitlisted, and then someone who was accepted cancelled last minute and I got their spot at the residency. And when I arrived, the bios of all the residents were printed on pretty sheets on the beds. Will you just LOOK at Jordan Kisner’s bio. (I still fangirl her. Though she’s the warmest human ever.) Now look at MY bio on this sheet. Oh that’s right. I didn’t have one. NOT a single publication or credential to my completely unknown name. So they excerpted a few sentences from my application instead. Hold on… I’m laughing so hard I can’t finish the caption….
Finally accepted to my first juried workshop at Lighthouse’s LitFest! But I still don’t know how to write without combining my run-on paragraphs with business jargon (from my business degree and my job in marketing). LOOK AT THIS PAGE! Poor Sarah Manguso ran out of ink striking through my bad sentences. But I’m leaving her name in here because 1. she was an amazing teacher and a wonderful human 2. she was 100% right that I had to learn that for every page I wrote, there might be ONE good sentence. (Now, go write a book. Haha-cry.) But AS SHE WAS CROSSING OUT my sentences in front of me, Sarah said this: “When you publish this…” and no one had ever said anything with certainty like that about my writing. She was right too. I submitted it and in a stroke of absurd beginner’s luck, the second lit mag that read it, published it. Never to come that easy ever again. Ps. This essay “Four Circles” is now in the middle of MY OCEANS, because the other essays metaphorically, and physically, orbit it.
Please don’t read this closely. It’s excruciating. My first pitch/query to a pretty famous agent. But let me summarize her comments: “Awkward.” “Awkward.” “Forced.” “Too Abstract.” “?” “?” “Awkward.” “Awkward” “?”. It will take another four years, countless query drafts, dozens more writing classes/workshops, and an entirely different book idea, before an agent finally says, “I like your query. Send me some pages.”
Ah yes, that time my accountant told me I could “only claim so many” years of financial loss and printed off this page, pushed it cross his big wooden desk, and in his sweet way, showed (rather than tell-ed) me that what I do is NOT considered a legitimate business, but what the IRS calls a “hobby.” *sad face*
Another acceptance! At the HuffPost! But it was not an easy publication decision and here’s the pro & con list to prove it. Was the viral publication WORTH the hundreds of comments from people (who didn’t read the essay) telling me I’m a bad mother? I don’t know because I didn’t read the comments! My husband told me the comments were TRASH and not worth my time reading. Was it worth learning that I don’t have to read non-constructive comments, and that I don’t have to do things not worth my time? Yes. THAT felt powerful. Did I follow up with Dr. Oz when he asked me to come on the show b/c of the essay? Hell no. Did I answer any of the two hundred people who DMed me on Instagram asking where to score magic mushrooms? Um. No. Sorry if you were one of them. But if you were the police trying to entrap me, nice try.
I think it was around that time when I found this gem in an antique store. You know, those little projectors from the 70s you peek into…
I’m pretty sure it’s antique porn. Which of course makes it better. I keep it within easy reach, in my top desk drawer, these days.
Oh no. Now I’m getting extra vulnerable. Because I love vulnerability and I should practice what I preach, right? The Sun Magazine was my door to the literary world. My first litmag love. See those ‘R’s? Those stand for seventeen REJECTIONS over the course of EIGHT years. I think three of my submissions made it to a final round of consideration… before they were, wait for it (like I did for months while biting my cuticles): REJECTED. That’s right: almost every single essay in my book was first rejected by The Sun Magazine. Most went on to find gorgeous homes. Some won contests and prizes (including a Pushcart). But it still fucking hurts. Chin up buttercup. Something still to aim for?
Some more rejections not pictured? The nine months of my book submission hell. The deafening silence to my “love letter” blurb requests… wait a minute, wait a minute. This has stopped being fun and is getting depressing. The book, the book, the book! Bring it out! Pull it out of the box! Hold it in my hands! Push down my imposter syndrome and midnight heart-clutching fear that it’s not worthy! That I’m not worthy!
I like this photo because the book legit feels like half my body. Was it all worth it? I don’t have that pro/con list yet, but my heart (and, damnit, my soul too) says yes. Despite all the gut-punching rejections and infinite work and financial loss, I wove some meaning out of my experiences in this life so far, and that feels worth it. I cried into probably every fucking page, and that feels worth it. I primal-screamed my existential distress about our planet in extinction crisis, and I don’t know who will hear it, but I do feel… relieved. And I’ll report back in a few months after this baby is officially out in the real world to tell you if I change my mind?
Pub date is 3/15/25 and maybe it’s not a “pre-order” anymore if the book gets to you in a week? But here are the links if you want to read my primal scream. *heart eyes*
Well *I* cried when I unboxed (okay frantically ripped open the envelope containing) your book!!! And I bet I’ll cry again when I get the copy I ordered from Bookworm!
And I am so glad you shared this rogue’s gallery of rejections because even if this is the cruise we writers sign up for, it still sucks. I hope seeing what you went through before My Oceans came together in such beautiful, devastating form — and was recognized for same — gives other writers a breath of hang-in-there to pull into their lungs. Oxk
It is really amazing to see all this hard work in one place. But the best part is your gleeful tone and the great sense of humor that show youve been victorious in your work before the book is even in stores.
My “failure” as that after year 2 of my MFA, I experienced a life altering TBI and could no longer (can no longer) read long form print works. Which is literary death in grad school for an advanced English degree. But it has led me to read via audiobooks. Now I’m writing an audio drama. It’s a great match for my neurodivergence and somehow really satisfying. Not sure where it will go from here but I’m having a lot more fun than I did writing long essays about trauma!
Well *I* cried when I unboxed (okay frantically ripped open the envelope containing) your book!!! And I bet I’ll cry again when I get the copy I ordered from Bookworm!
And I am so glad you shared this rogue’s gallery of rejections because even if this is the cruise we writers sign up for, it still sucks. I hope seeing what you went through before My Oceans came together in such beautiful, devastating form — and was recognized for same — gives other writers a breath of hang-in-there to pull into their lungs. Oxk
It is really amazing to see all this hard work in one place. But the best part is your gleeful tone and the great sense of humor that show youve been victorious in your work before the book is even in stores.
My “failure” as that after year 2 of my MFA, I experienced a life altering TBI and could no longer (can no longer) read long form print works. Which is literary death in grad school for an advanced English degree. But it has led me to read via audiobooks. Now I’m writing an audio drama. It’s a great match for my neurodivergence and somehow really satisfying. Not sure where it will go from here but I’m having a lot more fun than I did writing long essays about trauma!