I haven’t received a rejection letter in almost ten years. Or maybe it was over ten years. I can’t remember. I know it was when my old psychiatrist was still alive because he scolded me for not sending out proposals. I was too afraid of rejection, and I still am.

It was for a manuscript that began as a memoir. I sent it out to over forty literary agents and received about five rejection emails. Most of them were generic. Actually, all of them were. The rest weren’t even responses.

I knew it was coming, so my new plan was to hire an editor. A writer for the Los Angeles Times told me that I shouldn’t pay for one, but he was out of touch. All amateur and professional writers need professional editors to keep a second eye on their material.

But anyway, I hired an editor for the manuscript, which I’d written for seven years—seven years of rewrites. After the editor tore it apart and told me that it needed a theme (which befuddled me), I wrote it once again for another year, and it turned into a surrealistic science fiction story that didn’t make any sense. I didn’t dare send it out to the public because it would be too embarrassing.

So now it sits on the shelf in my closet in one of those plastic boxes. I use plastic boxes now instead of cardboard boxes because of a bed bug infestation last year, and I heard that bed bugs could hide in cardboard.

But I digress.

My father knew someone whose daughter was supposed to be a high-profile editor in New York, and that person wanted me to connect with her. From what I heard, the agent begrudgingly agreed to do it. She sent me an email asking if I had any questions. I divulged to her everything that had happened in my writing pursuit. She responded coldly, basically saying that if I couldn’t handle the process, I should find something else to do. It crushed me, my only chance at something that could’ve changed my life for the better.

I gave up after that email.

That same year, I ended up in a psych ward, rehab, and recovery. I won’t say those two are connected, but they might be, along with my mother’s back surgery that same year, when I witnessed her anesthetized in the hospital for a whole week. I bawled outside where no one could see me. My psychiatrist was dead by then.

Ever since that email, I haven’t wanted any help from an agent. I’ve decided on the self-publishing route. It seems to be the only way to go, even when everyone else is doing it. I’m just another one out of millions. Oh well. Life is hard. What can I do?

It’s even more difficult to self-publish. There are all these different things I have to do for the book to come out right. I don’t want it to look amateurish like so many of those other self-published books. I’m not a book designer. All I can cling to is hope.