Authors and their literary offsprings

“I have thrown my whole heart and soul into ‘Oliver Twist'”, wrote Charles Dickens, a budding British author, when he started writing his serialised novel of the same name in the year 1836. There is a unique painting titled ‘ Dickens’s Dreams’, displayed at the Charles Dickens Museum in London, that depicts Dickens surrounded by all his literary, fictional characters: Oliver, David, Agnes, Estella, Uriah Heep, Jack Dawkins aka The Artful Dodger, Peggotty Clara, Barkis, Charley Bates, Bill Sikes, Mr and Mrs Bumble, Little Nell Trent. It makes for a fascinating group photograph of the author surrounded by his lovable, literary offspring!

I remember reading a Kannada poet, who likens his literary work to a beautiful string of fresh, fragrant flowers put together by a florist, urging the passersby to buy it for their personal adornment. What is noteworthy here is the kind of intense and abiding love and affinity that exists between a writer and his writings. One desirous of his piece seeing the light of day, and submitting his/her manuscript to the editor of a newspaper or periodical would be as anxious as one sending his ward out into the wide world outdoors.

What follows afterwards would mostly be a period of anxiety, heartaches and heartburns! As it would mostly result in a rejection slip. There is, in fact, much more to be written about rejection slips than what all has so far been written about all the other subjects in Literature! Once I went out to meet the editor of a well-known illustrated weekly magazine in Indianapolis in the state of Indiana, during my stay in America, to enquire about the fate of my submissions to them. I found, during our discussions, how they were feeling somewhat fidgety about their mag having once rejected an article written by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway then didn’t despair and didn’t bid farewell to writing, he instead went on to win the Nobel prize for his classic ‘Farewell to Arms’.

The first step towards achieving success in freelance writing could be receiving a rejection slip! Next must be the further learning and perfecting of one’s art and craft of writing. Then it is perseverance. I’ve survived the classic rejection slips of yore, intimidatingly impersonal in tone and tenor. It has now been morphed into instant, automated response, setting out terms of the matter. It is not so terse of tone and tenor but in plain and practical words. So much so that it is good now.