Country Mouse and City Mouse

I am still applying for full-time teaching jobs with no luck; I've even contemplated getting my old job back at Expensive Clothing Store, where I would get paid slightly more than the minimum wage to say, "Thank you! Come again!" when I really want to say, "I bet when you sold your soul, Satan flinched and offered a refund."

One of the benefits to being single is that I can apply for jobs pretty much anywhere, since I don't have to worry about how a move to a different city or state would affect my spouse or kids. I'd like to stay in Chicago, but I'd also like to wake up looking like Sofia Vergara tomorrow. Unfortunately, the chances of either situation happening are highly unlikely. The former is especially difficult to achieve, due to the draconian budget cuts that the governor is implementing, which have severely and negatively affected the schools in Illinois.

I've applied for jobs all over the country, everywhere from New York City to tiny towns in West Virginia with only a thousand local residents. I'd prefer to live in a big city, rather than a small town that is similar to the small town that I spent eighteen years wanting to escape from. But most colleges are in smaller or medium-sized towns.

Small town life isn't all bad. I do miss the peace and quiet, and how, when I was a child, I used to lie on the grass next to my dog and hear nothing but birds chirping and my dog barking at passers-by. In the city, I lie on my bed and hear sirens blaring, horns honking, and my neighbors yelling, "Chug! Chug! Chug!" as they gulp down their umpteenth beer.

I don't miss the fact that in a small town, everyone not only knew each other, they knew everyone else's business. So if you made any big or small decision in that town, everyone would know within days (or hours), and they'd be sure to throw in their two cents. I like the anonymity of Chicago, where I can walk down the street and not run into an old acquaintance who wants to rehash one of the many times I publicly embarrassed myself at school.

I miss the sight of farmland and wide open spaces, unlike Chicago, where everyone is always bumping into each other or pushing each other to make space for themselves. I remember crossing the street in my hometown and waving to drivers I recognized, whereas in Chicago drivers are much more likely to honk and scream at me for not moving fast enough. I respond by screaming, "I'll move faster...in HELL!"

I don't miss the fact that in my hometown, it seemed like everyone was expected to be the same. If you were even a little bit different, you were a freak, and everyone treated you like a freak. And that was my life for eighteen years, because I was different. I'm not saying that all small towns are like that, because they're not; I'm sure that other towns are more accepting. But one thing I like about Chicago is that there are a lot of people who are much "freakier" than I am, and here, they're viewed as "cool". I don't have to hide who I am here, and I've always felt more comfortable here than I ever did in my hometown.

It makes me sad when I think about leaving Chicago and all the things I'll miss (which is another post in itself). But I always knew that my time here came with an expiration date. The thing about the academic job market is that you can't afford to be choosy. You have to go where the work is. So if I end up in a town even smaller than the one I grew up in, so be it, as long as I get to teach at a good school. But as my rejection letters pile up, I am starting to lose hope that I'll find anything.

Also, I really don't want to go back to working in retail, because I think that a few days at my old store just might end with several customers running out of the store, shrieking, while I chase after them with a mannequin.

What about you? Do you prefer city life or life in a small town?

An Uncertain Future

This year I have applied for full-time teaching jobs at eighty schools all over the country. So far, I have been rejected by thirty of them.

It's discouraging, to say the least, to open my mail and find yet another rejection letter. It also makes me scared about what's going to happen in the future. I have just enough money to pay my basic expenses through August. But what will I do after that?

I started working when I was sixteen, as a cashier in a grocery store in the small Midwestern town I grew up in, where I routinely had to tell customers to put shirts on so they wouldn't be made to leave the store (and I tried not to stare at their farmer tans as I told them). I've had a variety of jobs, everything from stuffing envelopes, to resisting the urge to strangle rude customers with the clothes I was trying to sell them, to breaking up fights among troubled high school students, to resisting the urge to fling undergraduates' cell phones out the window.

I've never been unemployed, though I have been underemployed, underpaid, and overworked. When I couldn't find a full-time teaching job after I got a master's degree, I started working as a part-time adjunct instructor at various schools. Adjunct work is difficult because the pay is low; there is no health insurance or benefits; you're hired on an as-needed basis, so you could have a full course load one term and no classes the next. That's why I also worked in retail, and I took on a part-time job for a website.

Despite the fact that I'm a workaholic, I never liked working multiple jobs. I was tired all the time. I was screamed at and disrespected by some of my students, my customers, and my supervisors. I accepted it because I had few other options, though I often cried privately when it got to be too much. The harder I worked, the more my personality hardened: I went from being cheerful, friendly, and optimistic to stressed, antisocial, and cynical.

Now I'm close to finishing my dissertation, and I'll be defending it in about a month. If it doesn't get approved, you'll hear me screeching like a howler monkey from thousands of miles away. If it does get approved, I'll finally have my PhD. But the question is, what happens next?

I've applied to large research universities, small four-year colleges, and community colleges. I've applied to posh boarding schools, because they occasionally hire PhDs. I've even applied for tutoring jobs at university writing centers, even though they pay tens of thousands dollars less than teaching jobs do. But with the exception of one school, who was interested in hiring me until they found someone with more impressive credentials, I have no other job leads.

It bothers me that even though I am a good teacher with hundreds of positive evaluations from my students, someone with a longer list of academic publications and awards is much more likely to get the job. What most of these search committees are looking for is someone who has excelled as a scholar, while his or her teaching record is much less important. I think it should be the other way around, but I'm in the minority on that issue.

The chair of the English department at my school told the PhD candidates that it was normal not to find a tenure-track position within the first year and that the search could take at least two more years. Even after that, we still might not find one. But in the meantime, I still have bills to pay, and I can't even get a job as an untenured, full-time lecturer at a community college in the Middle of Nowhere, USA.

It's depressing and scary to think that I could be rejected by fifty more schools. After I get my PhD, it'll (hopefully) be easier to find a job. But in the meantime, I may have to go back to work in retail (if I do, you'll hear me screeching like a howler monkey from thousands of miles away), continue working as an adjunct, and increase the hours at my website job.

Even if I worked three jobs again, I wouldn't necessarily have enough money to live on. As an experienced salesgirl, I would get paid more. But I would get fewer hours, because it's cheaper for the employers to give hours to the ones with less experience. Adjuncts make little more (or in some cases, less) than retail workers. For example, I was once offered a teaching job that would have paid less than a hundred dollars a week (before taxes). I could get health insurance as a salesgirl (but not as an adjunct instructor), but it's very basic insurance, which wouldn't cover the specialized treatment I need for my neurological disorder.

But I will do what I have to do. I will NOT ask my parents for money, for reasons that are better left unwritten. I've heard of other untenured faculty who had to live on food stamps, but hopefully I won't have to do that. I may, however, have to sign up for Medicaid.

Right now I'm still waiting to hear back from those other schools that haven't rejected me. A lot of them just posted their ads in March and April and won't start reviewing applications until May, so I won't hear anything until June at the earliest. The uncertainty is the worst. I just want to know, one way or another, what's going to happen, so that I can figure out where to go from there.

What about you? Have you ever had difficulty finding a job in your desired field?

When Revenge Is Bitter, Not Sweet

One of the worst dates I ever went on was with a very good-looking personal trainer. We went out for dinner, and we'd barely been talking for a more than few minutes before he said, "I just remembered that I have to be somewhere else tonight." He claimed that he had to go to some other event at a club that same night, but he didn't ask me to go with him. The date ended about an hour later, at 8 P.M. on a Friday night. I've had coffee dates that lasted longer than that.

After I watched him take off like the Road Runner, leaving a cloud of dust behind, I realized that I'd had the date that is every dater's nightmare: the kind where you show up and your date immediately decides, "No. NEVER going to happen." And you're left to fall face-first into a tub of ice cream.

When I was in junior high, I went to a school dance and asked a boy that I had a crush on to dance with me. He said no, and when people later asked why he'd turned me down, he said something derogatory about me (though not to my face). He went to a different high school, but he resurfaced a couple years later when he started dating my best friend.

He tried to destroy my friendship with my best friend, because he convinced her that the only reason I hated him was because he'd rejected me at that junior high dance. What neither of them was willing to believe was that I hated him because he was manipulative, deceitful, and a snob. He was rude to me and to my other friends, who also disliked him.

I recently read an article about a girl who got revenge against a a guy who used to be mean to her in junior high. Apparently she was kind of "awkward-looking" in junior high, and he and his friends used to bully her. Years later, they reconnected on Facebook, and she had become more attractive, so he asked her out.

Her idea of "revenge" against her former bully was to agree to go on a date with him, but she later stood him up. He waited for her at the restaurant where they agreed to meet, but she got a waitress to give him this note:

The girl, Louisa Manning, wrote this:

"Hey, so sorry I can't join you tonight. Remember year 8, when I was fat and you made fun of my weight? No? I do - I spent the following three years eating less than an apple a day so I've decided to skip dinner. Remember the monobrow you mocked? The hairy legs you were disgusted by?

Remember how every day for three years you and your friends called me Manbeast? No, perhaps you don't or you wouldn't have seen how I look eight years after and deemed me f**** enough to treat me like a human being. I thought I'd send you this as a reminder. Next time you think of me, picture that girl in this photo because that's the one who stood you up."

Her note made me think of those two jerks in particular who rejected me. I haven't seen either of those creeps in years, but I admit that if I ever did see them again, I'd feel a sense of satisfaction at making them see what big tools they both were. Of course, in that fantasy, I'd look a lot like Sofia Vergara (aka Gloria on Modern Family) and they'd both be kicking themselves for being mean to me. I don't harbor any romantic feelings for either of them, of course, but it'd still be nice to get back at them.

But unlike every person who was ever mean to me, Louisa Manning's former bully apologized to her. He wrote her a note saying that he wasn't the same person that he used to be and that he was sorry for how he treated her in the past.

On the one hand, I can understand this girl's desire for revenge. I remember very well what it was like to be bullied. I was bullied from first grade until I graduated from high school. As we all know, kids can be very cruel, especially if another kid is "different" in any way. And when you're a teenager in particular, all you want to do is fit in, and it's very painful if some people are determined to prevent you from ever doing that.

But on the other hand, I think what Louisa did to that guy was also cruel, thoughtless, and humiliating. She should have just been up front with him when he first asked her out. Instead she led him on and got his hopes up, only to crush them in the end. In my opinion, the former victim became a bully herself, and I don't think that's right.

Do I have any choice words for the people who used to bully me, like the classmates who spread the false rumor that I was a lesbian because I never dated in high school? Yes, I DO have some choice words for them, most of which are four-letter words. Do I wish I could reenact a scene from any Jackie Chan movie if I got the chance to confront one of the boys or girls who used to knock books out of my hands, throw balls at my face in gym class, call me names, and make fun of my hair, clothes, and shoes?  I would like to fight them Jackie Chan-style, so that they would cower in fear and never hurt anyone ever again. 

But would I do what Louisa Manning did? NO. In my opinion, she lowered herself to the level of her former bullies, and she became one of them, at least for one night. I think that she should have just moved on with her life, rather than treat that guy the same way that he used to treat her. 

What do you think? Do you think what she did was right, or can you relate to her? (And like I said, I do relate to her on some level, and I won't condemn you, of course, if you agree with her.) What would you do if you had the chance to confront a former bully?

I (Do Not) Resolve

I resolve to write fiction and creative nonfiction more regularly.

I do not resolve to write fiction and creative nonfiction every day, because I have to work on my other book (my dissertation), which may as well be titled The Book with One Million Footnotes or The Book That No One (Including Me) Will Want to Read.

I resolve to use my envy of other people's success to motivate myself to achieve my own goals.

I do not resolve to never be envious again, especially since I wish I had other women's hair at least 537 times a week and I can literally feel my eyes turning green whenever the other grad students go on and on about their academic accomplishments. I think that jealousy is part of human nature, and it's impossible to say that I'll never envy anyone again. I think the important thing is to learn to deal with it in a more productive way, rather than in a "I'm going to kick you if you make me feel bad about my lack of academic accomplishments ONE more time" way.

I resolve to send my work out to more literary magazines and writing competitions. I'm still working on two novels, but a lot of writers have advised fiction writers like me to send short stories out to literary magazines first. They say you don't need an agent for those, and this way I can assemble a portfolio to show potential agents when the time comes. For a long time I kept my writing hidden away in my notebooks and on my computer. But this past year, when I sent a story to a literary magazine, I received an encouraging rejection letter. The editors said that they were impressed with my writing and that even though that particular story wasn't right for them, they encouraged me to send them another one. And THAT made me feel good. Even though I got rejected, it made me feel like a writer.

I do not resolve to tell certain people about my dream of becoming a writer, especially because I prefer to keep my writing life a secret (outside of the blogosphere, that is). I tried to tell a few people before, but they either ridiculed my goal or made me feel like my writing would never be good enough. Obviously, I told the wrong people.

I like making resolutions every year, because it makes me feel like the new year is full of promise; in a way, it gives us a chance to make a fresh start. But I also think it's important to be realistic about the kinds of resolutions you make, which is why I would never resolve to win American Idol (especially because my voice makes people cover their ears and run away) or to win the heart of the new Bachelor (especially because I really DON'T want someone who murmurs sweet nothings in the ears of two dozen other women at the same time that he's "dating" me).

What about you? Did you make any resolutions this year? 

All I Want for Christmas

1. Is to be able to teach at a good school for as long as I can. Teaching is the one job that I've learned the most from, and I still feel happiest when I'm in a classroom, interacting with my students.

2. Is for all my students to throw their cell phones in the air and say, "Who needs texting, anyway?" (That will never happen, but a girl can dream.)

3. Is to continue to improve and strengthen my skills as a teacher. Even though I've grown a lot since I first stepped over to the other side of the desk, there is still a lot that I need to learn.

4. Is to travel more, starting with my trip to New York sometime in 2014. I've always wanted to go there, but I never did due to lack of time and money. But now I finally have money saved up, and I'm going to go and be like all those awe-struck tourists that both annoy and amuse me here in Chicago.

5. Is to make more time for writing, reading,  dance classes, and even socializing. And I want to make more time for other fun things in Chicago, like bike riding by the lake when it's warm out or getting cheap tickets to a really interesting play at one of the tiny theaters.

6. Is to have the strength to stand up to the people who make me feel bad about myself. I mentioned in my last post that it was difficult for me to even believe that my crush could ever like me. I focused so much on what certain people thought was wrong with me and didn't spend enough time thinking about the fact that there ARE good things about me, even if they can't see it.

7. Is to let myself feel something real for someone. For a long time I kept my heart closed off to everyone, because I was so afraid of being rejected and getting hurt. But it didn't really make me feel better. It just made me feel numb. I don't want to feel like that anymore. I still might get rejected, and I still might get hurt. But I don't want to keep myself closed off anymore.

I'd like to say that I've found the courage to ask out my crush on a date. I'd also like to say that I didn't eat Froot Loops for dinner because I accidentally set fire to the chicken I tried to make first. But then I'd just be lying.

What about you? What do you want for Christmas, or what kinds of changes do you want to make?

I Give Up...For Now

If there was ever a reason to cancel my plentyoffish membership, it's this one: I was recently contacted by a guy who described his occupation as "Ass Sniffer".

I immediately thought of my parents' dogs, Neurotic Jr. and Jane Dog, who greet other dogs by sniffing their butts. Was that guy trying to say that he acts like a dog? Does he also drink out of the toilet and like tummy rubs?

I suppose it could have been worse. He could have described himself as a "Boob Grabber".

I'm embarrassed to admit that I only got to go on one date this time around on match.com. On the other hand, I've already described eight other guys on this blog: I met two of them on okcupid, two on eharmony, and four on chemistry.com. Then there are all the other guys I went out with that I met on online dating sites before I started blogging. I'm not going to say how many I've gone out with, because it's more than I thought I would have to go out with.

I'll also admit that I haven't really been active on either site these last couple of months. I've just been so wrapped up in my dissertation that I haven't had time. It is time consuming to read through all those profiles and send out e-mails (I don't send winks anymore. If I were to meet a guy in real life, I'd strike up a conversation with him, not wink at him. Also, I don't like to wink because I'm afraid that my contact lens will fall out.).

I really do want to meet someone special. I want to get married and have a family. It doesn't help that almost every time my mother calls, she either asks if I'm dating anyone or she tells me that someone younger than me is getting married.

I want to meet someone whose personality is kind of like Harry's in the film When Harry Met Sally. I always liked that in addition to being in love with each other, they were also best friends. And they were perfect for each other, because they were equally neurotic. If I could fall in love with a guy who could be my neurotic best friend AND my boyfriend, life would be good. (It'd also be nice if he looked and danced like Channing Tatum did in the film Magic Mike, but that's not necessarily a requirement.)

I know someone who thinks that Mr. Right will just show up one day. She's still waiting. I thought it was better to put myself out there. I still remember how each time I went on another date, I felt a mixture of nervousness and hope.

But I DON'T want to keep sending e-mails to guys who aren't interested, or to receive one or two e-mails from a guy before he pulls a disappearing act. Every time I got rejected, it made me feel like there was something wrong with me. I thought I wasn't thin enough, pretty enough, or interesting enough. It made me remember what it was like to be a wallflower in high school. I hated it. I know that everyone gets rejected, but when you get rejected over and over again, it can be very disheartening.

I DON'T want to read any more profiles of men who only want to date women who are decades younger than them, but who don't want to date women who are their age or are two years older. Apparently their enormous egos prevent them from realizing that most women in their teens and twenties prefer to date guys their own age. Unless I start lying about my age or get plastic surgery (which will never happen, because if I could afford plastic surgery, I'd spend the money on books, coffee, and Kick Me signs instead), it may get even more difficult for me to find someone as I get older. But I don't want to be with someone who likes me just because I'm fifteen years younger.

I don't regret joining any of those online dating sites. I got to meet new people and go on dates. I learned what I want and what I don't want. I gained enough courage to put myself out there, which is something I was too afraid to do for a long time. I also got enough material for at least two novels.

Now I'll have more time to write fiction. I had to set my manuscripts aside for almost the entire summer in order to work on my dissertation, which is why I turned into the Neurotic Hulk. I'll also have more time for the other things that make me happy, like taking fiction writing classes, reading, visiting museums, watching TV crime dramas, attending plays, and teaching. And, of course, I'll have more time for my dissertation.

I'm not saying I'll never put myself out there ever again. My match.com membership expires in November, so I'll keep it until then. I might even send out a few e-mails to guys whose profiles don't creep me out or who make me want to join a convent. But I'm not going to be as active on either site as I was before.

What do you think? Do you think it's better to keep putting yourself out there, or do you think it's better to leave it up to fate?

I Can Take a Hint

Yesterday I received a brief e-mail from the guy I met on match.com. He wrote that he "didn't think we were a great match."

Maybe I shouldn't have written back, but I did. I didn't write, "Oh yeah? Well, at least I don't walk AND talk like a robot!" Instead, I wrote that I already knew we weren't a good match since it had been a week since our date and I hadn't heard from him. I also added that he didn't need to e-mail me.

On match.com, people can send "rejection" e-mails to people that they're not interested in. I've received a few myself, and I must admit that I've sent a few to guys who kept winking at me and e-mailing me even after I didn't respond the first time. Match.com will write the rejection for you; that is, you can choose responses like, "I just don't think we're a good match," (sounds like that guy plagiarized match.com, but I'm just SAYING) or "I've met someone else and I want to see how it goes." But I've never received a rejection e-mail after I already went on a date with the guy.

I'm not sure why he felt the need to e-mail me in the first place. As I mentioned in my last post, he left a message soon after our date to let me know that he had fun. Based on my past experience, if a guy contacts me right after the date, that means he wants to see me again. So the next day I texted him to say hi, and I suggested that we meet again if he had any more free time. He said he'd let me know, which to me felt like the kiss of death.

I didn't hear from him again after that. Did he think that I spent all week waiting by the phone for him to call? Did I continue to e-mail, text, and call him incessantly? Did I send him pictures of myself in different wedding gowns with a note that said, "Which one do you like best?" Did I send him a copy of the movie Fatal Attraction with a note that said, "This film is so inspiring"? Did I e-mail him to say, "I just happened to be outside your apartment with binoculars last night, and I saw you through the window. Did you get your hair cut?" NO! I didn't do any of those things.

Since he never asked me out again, and since I didn't hear from him all week, I figured that was a not-so-subtle hint that he wasn't interested. I was disappointed, but I wasn't heartbroken. To be honest, during the date I didn't feel that thing you're supposed to feel when you make a connection with someone. On the other hand, I was willing to give him another chance to see if anything more were to develop. He wasn't willing to give me another chance, though, so within a few days of our date, I was back on match.com to see who else was out there. And he would've been able to see when I was online.

I thought he was a nice guy, and I thought the date was nice, too. But now when I look back on this what I'll remember is that last e-mail, and that just ruins it all for me.

(Side note: The guy's name also happens to be the same name as my main character's love interest in one of my manuscripts, though I named that character long before I met that guy. I was tempted to change the name, but I'm not going to let him ruin the character for me too.)

What do you think? Do you think it's necessary to let someone know you're not interested after you've gone on a date? If you do, how have you done it? (I'm curious about this for future reference, in case I ever end up going out with someone who can't take a hint.)

Getting Rejected

I've been on match.com for about a week now, and I'm already thinking that I should a) stop shaving my legs; b) stop working out and start eating whatever I want, which means I'll start by falling head first into a box of chocolates; c) shave my head and use the money that I save on hair products to buy books with titles like I HATE MEN.

On match.com, if someone contacts you, you can click on "No thanks", and the website will send him a "not interested" e-mail. I've already gotten five of those "not interested" e-mails. I've also sent e-mails to dozens of guys, but almost all of them haven't responded.

It makes me think that maybe a) at age 32, I really AM too old; b) I should get plastic surgery to make myself look more attractive, except then I'd be able to tell people, "Nothing on my face is real"; c) I'm going to be single forever, so maybe I should adopt a bunch of dogs right now so I can become the crazy dog lady (I can't be the crazy cat lady, because I'm allergic to cats and then I'd be the dead crazy cat lady).

Yes, I've been contacted by guys on match.com every day. (Most of them "wink" at me, because apparently it's too much effort to send e-mails. I dislike winks, because then the pressure is on me to figure out what to say in the first e-mail.) Like the sixty-year old man who apparently doesn't think it'd be awkward at all to date someone who's almost thirty years younger than him. Or the fifty-three year old who specified in his profile that he only wants to date women in their twenties and thirties. Or the Asian guy who described himself as the "Orient Express" and invited women to "take a ride". Or the guy with three chins who described himself as "athletic and toned" and specified in his profile that he only wants to date "slender" women.

It's discouraging, to say the least. Why am I only attractive to much older men and guys who make inappropriate jokes about sex? Every time I get another "wink" or an e-mail, I cringe, because I know that whoever e-mailed me is most likely someone I would never want to date. And almost every single time, I'm right.

It's not like my standards are too high. I didn't just e-mail the "perfect 10s." If a guy looked remotely attractive, I sent him a brief e-mail to introduce myself and ask him a couple questions. But even a guy I didn't think was that cute sent me a "not interested" email.

And my criteria isn't just based on looks either, though I will admit that physical attractiveness is a factor. I don't think it's so wrong to want to be physically attracted to the people that you date. But it's also based on what the guys write in their profiles. There was one good-looking guy that I didn't e-mail because he hardly wrote anything about himself in his profile. He only wrote two sentences in his "summary", and he didn't include any other information. It made me think that he was either just really lazy or was just on the site for one thing, and it wasn't a relationship.

There are other guys who wrote things in their profiles that made me laugh out loud, so I e-mailed them, even if they weren't guys I normally would have noticed. Others mentioned having read my favorite books, so I e-mailed them too. But still nothing.

It makes me feel sad. I reread my profile and looked in the mirror and tried to figure out what was it about me that was so unattractive. I don't think I'm ugly, but a week with almost no positive responses from the guys I e-mailed made me think that I am.

I say "almost" because one guy did respond. We've exchanged a couple e-mails so far, and he seems nice enough. A part of me can't help thinking that he'll be like several of the guys I dated, the ones I liked but who didn't like me back. I can't help thinking that he'll show up for our date, take one look at me, and then make an excuse so that he can leave early (that did happen to me on a date once, and it was awful). 

I'm going to keep trying for a few weeks, at least. But if it doesn't work out with that guy and I keep getting rejected by other guys on match.com, I'm not going to stick it out for the entire three months of my paid membership. Then I'm going to sign up for a membership with plentyoffish.com. If THAT doesn't work out, then I'm going to go to the hair stylist and tell her that I want the "Kojak" look.

What about you? How do you deal with rejection? Do you think it's better to send a "not interested" e-mail or to just not respond at all?

Side note: Here's a hilarious video I found online that cheered me up a little. All teachers should be like the one in this video.

How to Deal with Rejection

Several bloggers and other people have been buzzing about the fact that Pam van Hylckama Vlieg, a literary agent in California, was attacked by a writer whose query she'd rejected. He reached through her car window and tried to push her into her steering wheel. But one of her dogs bit him, and the police later caught the guy. (Reason #786 why dogs rule: Dogs have your back.)

I felt sorry for that agent, and I couldn't help thinking how foolish and senseless it was of that "writer" to attack her like that. It was a violent crime. Also, what agent in his or her right mind is going to want to work with someone like that in the future?

Every writer gets rejected. I think it's part of being a writer. You learn from all those rejection letters and unanswered submissions. You learn what works in your writing and what doesn't. It shows you what sells and what doesn't. Rejection is not an excuse to hurt anyone.

Here are other possible ways to deal with rejection:

1. Try writing a book about a werewolf and a vampire who fall in love, except they can't be together because one of them is also in love with a teenage wizard whose name rhymes with "Barry" and the other one makes his lovers sign S&M contracts.

2. Try hypnotizing people through Twitter by sending out Tweets like, "You are getting very sleepy. When you open your eyes, you will go out and buy my book. And you will LOVE my book."

3. Bide your time until you do become a successful, published author by practicing your Pulitzer Prize acceptance speech to the cashier in the supermarket checkout line, the teller at the bank, and your dry cleaner. All the people standing in line behind you will probably applaud...just so you'll stop talking. (Or maybe they'll start throwing things.)

4. Work out your aggression on a punching bag, and tape a picture of the cover of a book that you really hate to the front of it.

5. Send out a manuscript to another agent, and then pick the petals off of a flower while saying, "He (or she) loves my manuscript, he loves it not."

6. Listen to inspirational music while you're writing, like the theme song to Rocky, Queen's "We Are the Champions", or Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time". (What? Am I the only one who finds her music inspirational?)

7. Imitate Scarlett O'Hara by eating turnips in the middle of a field and declaring, "As God is my witness, they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be unpublished again."

8. Name all of your characters after the literary agents that you're sending your work to.

9. Resist the urge to look at books by celebrity "authors" and wail, "Why? WHY?" before running out and buying a bunch of ice cream.

10. Pick up a pen or turn on your computer and keep writing.

What about you? As a writer, how do you handle rejection?