We Write With Regret
February
I lose my first USTA match of the season.
I’m surprised, I find out when I shake hands with my opponent. I guess the set I lost 1-6 wasn’t warning enough, and I guess I thought the comeback I made from 1-5 to 3-5 meant something more than I did.
I’m surprised, even though it’s the twelfth match in a row that I’ve lost.
I’ve only won one match ever, actually, and it was after a rainstorm postponed the evening match halfway through, so we finished the second set and the ten-point tie break on a Sunday afternoon in direct sunlight, when it was literally 99 degrees and my opponent watched the LSU baseball game on the bench every time we switched sides.
I start thinking about it, and I’m so angry about losing that I start trying to convince myself not to be angry. You can’t win them all, I tell myself, the way I normally talk to myself when I’m upset, by trying to imagine what my dad would tell me if he were here.
But then, I pull out my phone and start obsessively checking records on the USTA website, and I’m thinking, sure, I can’t win them all, but surely I can’t lose them all, either. But wait, I do lose them all, other than that one clown match. And you actually can win them all, I see, because this guy is undefeated.
And I realize it’s all a lie, every time we heard that optimistic, glass half full platitude. You can’t win them all, bud, Dad says and slaps me on the back. But no Dad, someone is winning them all. You can win them all, if you’re Joe Johnson and I’m losing them all, because statistically if I keep losing Joe can keep winning until his record is 12-0 and mine is 0-12.
In life, Dad, some people do win them all. Some people just seem to win every time. And that’s why I keep losing.
I take the exit right before mine and pull into the mall parking lot. I want to be self destructive, to do something bad I can control, instead of play tennis badly when I’m trying so damn hard to do well.
But I have work in the morning, so the best thing I can come up with is to go to BJs by myself and eat a pizookie.
I don’t eat dessert because sugar hurts my stomach, and I don’t eat ice cream because sugar and dairy really hurts my stomach. So I eat 1200 calories of both, pay my bill, and drive home.
My retainer magically reappears for the first time in six years when I’m rummaging around for my toothpaste. I cram it onto my teeth, and it’s tight, but it fits.
I brush my teeth thoroughly, and then I brush my retainer. Toothpaste foam spills across my fingers as I hold the plastic and scrub.
I put it in and climb into bed. Am I the kind of girl who eats pizookies by herself at 9 pm on a school night? Or am I the kind of girl who brushes her retainer?
I put on my chapstick and turn off the light. I’m the kind of girl who loses tennis matches.
My stomach hurts, obviously.
March
Yeah, we know. I’m competitive. But why?
People talk about being competitive like it’s a disease you can’t cure, can’t be sure how you got it, just have to live with it.
But what if that’s not true? What if I’m competitive because I’m a control freak, because the most important thing in my life, my writing, is something I can’t control?
Because when you submit writing, you can’t control anything. You send something you made with your own sweat and sinew and don’t see it again, a tennis ball you launched to the moon and it never came back. Instead of a felted yellow ball, down fell a form-rejection email, the first typeset line reading “Dear Emily, We write with regret to say that we will not…” and the rest disappears into the futility of your clenched fist.
I submitted my An Earth Full of Stars manuscript over and over, rejections appearing in my inbox over and over in three month intervals. I wanted to get better so I applied to the LSU MFA, traded eighty dollars and days of my life for another email that says, Dear Emily, We write with regret to say…
This year I change my Statement of Purpose, my writing samples, I read and write and work hard. I apply again and wait three months for my email. Dear Emily,
We write with regret.
So I take my racket to the court and smack the shit out of the ball, every stroke and explosion of felt insisting that I am strong enough. I am good enough.
April
Control the controllables. But what about when it still hurts?
What about the shot you set up, backswing, contact, follow through, and you shank it or it hits your frame or goes wide or tips the net and fall back into your court? It’s a mis-hit or your racket face was pointed up or your backswing wasn’t low enough or you didn’t accelerate through the ball.
Then you smash your racket. Because for once, all of the controllables were in your white-knuckled fists and you
Still
Failed.
Then, in the face of your unmediated failure, you must admit that it is your fault. It’s a simpler answer than you were willing to admit: you’re not good enough.
But maybe, later, when the rage is gone, you can admit that’s good news.
Because if it’s that you’re not good enough, then you can get better.
May
I was born a writer.
I was not born with a red pen in hand and the ability to perfect a sentence I already wrote. Writing is the place you’re expected to be anything but perfect. Then, you have to revise.
I finished drafting Sam Watts is Fine on December 25th. Less than two months after I began.
It’s May. And I’m still. . . re . vis . . ing. . . .
Renovate. Renovate is better than revise because renovate implies that I’m overhauling something with good bones so it is more beautiful and more valuable. Revise sounds like I’m going backwards, and I can’t stomach anything like that.
Still, impossibly, I have to keep hacking at the words I’ve read over and over and make them more sensical, more funny, original, perfect.
And still, impressively, I’m finding rejections in my inbox. I did not move on to the second round of the microfiction contest. Go figure.
I’m tired.
June
Renovations.
Week One: I enter another short story contest. I write 1200 words of a new novel. I lose my tennis match.
I watch Coco Gauff beat Sabalenka in the French Open final, and I realize I am Sabalenka. So angry I’m failing that I forget to do better. I revise Sam Watts is Fine.
Week Two: I revise Sam Watts is Fine.
Week Three: I take a tennis lesson. I’m paying someone to tell me I’m not good enough so that I can get better.
I revise Sam Watts is Fine.
Week Four: I take a tennis lesson. I revise Sam Watts is Fine.
July
Nicholas provides me another motivational morsel: “Lazy people do a little work and think they should be winning. Winners work as hard as possible and still worry that they are being lazy.”
In June, I did 61 workouts. I’m usually not the best player on the court. But by God, I am never the laziest.
I said it a year ago: I win in the end.
Week One: I win my tennis match.
Week Two: July 11th, I finish the third draft of Sam Watts is Fine. And it is good.
55 days to write it. 198 days to make it better.
Week Three: I win a match, I lose a match. I take two tennis lessons.
Week Four: On Monday, I lose. The match I really, really, wanted to win. I drank two Red Bulls and regripped both my rackets and brought my family to watch, but I’m not the best player on the court. I’m faster and more aggressive and in better shape, and my opponent has to take her inhaler and hunches over when I’m about to serve so she can catch her breath, but I lose.
On Tuesday, I play poorly in practice. I’ve played tennis twelve times in eight days, and my wrist hurts. I cry, drink two Blue Moons, and try a new racket. Then I go back to my old one. I try an earlier backswing. I can’t take a break, I have another match tomorrow.
On Wednesday evening, I text my opponent to confirm.
Are we still on for 7 pm at city park?
Thirty minutes later, I pull over on the way out of my neighborhood. I check my phone. She still hasn’t responded. I call her, and it goes to voicemail. I call City Park.
“City Park, this is Abby.”
“Hi, it’s Emily. Can you tell me if you have a court reserved at 7:00 for Laura Richards?”
After that I send a new text. Hey Laura, I called at city park and they didn’t have a court under your name so I’m assuming we’re not playing today!
Thirty-five minutes later, she calls. I’m already back at my desk, sending queries.
“Oh shit,” Laura says. “I’m so sorry, I forgot. I’ve been packing to move this weekend, and I got us lost on my schedule. I never do things like this. My mom is literally here watching me make this call, I’m surrounded by boxes. I’m so sorry. I feel terrible.” She apologizes so profusely that the space between my hello and my it’s all good can be marked in minutes.
Eventually, when she feels she’s apologized enough, she says, “If you don’t want to reschedule, you can just take the win.” The words swell through me like poison. My body rejects them so violently that I hear them exiting my ear canals in echo.
“No,” I say, and every other sound recedes to make room for the word. “I would like to reschedule.”
I wish her luck with moving, and set the phone down. I’ve been working on my query package all week. On my 34-inch monitor, I get back to work.
That night, I send eight queries. By October, all eight lines of my spreadsheet will likely be marked closed or no response. I’ll open four emails that read:
Dear Emily,
Thank you for the opportunity to see your pages. Unfortunately, I don't feel I am the right agent for this project, so I'm passing.
Dear Emily,
Thank you for your query! I so appreciate the opportunity to review your work, but I’m afraid that it’s just not the best fit for my list at this time.
Dear Emily,
Thank you for sending your work. Unfortunately, I will have to pass on this manuscript.
Dear Emily,
Thank you so much for your query. I appreciate the opportunity to consider your work, but unfortunately, after careful consideration, I have decided to bow out.
The other four won’t respond. But by now, I know what they would’ve said.
Dear Emily. Thank you. Unfortunately.
Or maybe, it’ll say:
Hi Emily,
I have read your query and found it interesting. Please follow the instructions below to submit your full manuscript.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
