The thirty-seventh rejection letter — she read it first

Old Ji had one habit he had kept for nineteen years: he wrote novels and sent them out.

Nineteen years, thirty-six rejection letters. In the worst stretch they came two a month. The longest silence was a year and a half, and during that year and a half he was fairly sure he was doing something ridiculous. He finished a manuscript and locked it in a drawer for six months.

What kept him sending out the first one was his wife, Wen Qing.

She was an accountant at a textile mill and had spent her working life with numbers. In her spare time she read two kinds of books: the ones he had written and the ones he hadn't finished. Every new story spent a night in her hands. In the morning there would be pencil notes along the margins. This part is wordy. Why does this man steal an umbrella — you never set that up. The ending turns sentimental all of a sudden. Cut it. Let the rain fall by itself.

Then he revised, mailed it, and waited. The reply was addressed to him, and he never opened it first. He handed it to her. She slit it open, skimmed the editor's reason, held it up against her own notes, and delivered a fair verdict. "This editor is talking nonsense. You fixed that part properly. Hmm. This one has a point."

Thirty-six letters. She inspected every one on his behalf.

One year he nearly quit. He threw down his pen and said he was done, he didn't have the talent, there was no one to blame. Wen Qing gathered up the manuscript he had been working on, pulled the very first story out of the pile, and opened it to page one. The note there read: opening too slow. Then she found the most recent story and opened that to page one. The note read: the opening drags you straight in.

She laid the two pages side by side. "Nineteen years ago you couldn't really write. Now you can. What you're short of is luck, not a pen."

The thirty-seventh letter arrived while he was away on business. He had sent the story to a literary journal four months earlier and heard nothing. He assumed it was over again.

When he got home, Wen Qing was already sitting at the dinner table. On the table lay the envelope, opened, and beside it a printed notice.

She spoke first. "Rejection. Reason given: limited space in this issue."

His stomach dropped.

"But." She slid another sheet out from under the notice. "An editor at the same magazine wrote separately. They argued over the story three rounds internally. One of them pounded the table to keep it. It's the lead in the next issue. The reprint request is attached. The fee is eight times what the other magazine pays."

His hands shook as he took the page. Then something occurred to him. "Wait. How did you know to open this one first?"

She gave him a look. "Nineteen years. Which letter haven't I read first?"

The story was published and won the magazine's annual prize. At the ceremony he went up and said one thing. He had written for nineteen years, he said, and apart from thirty-seven rejection letters, he had an editor who was never on any payroll, and who had annotated several million words. The publisher had asked whether the dedication should read "For my wife." He said no, make it practical.

The title page carries one line: For Wen Qing, my first reader. Thirty-six times, and not once missed.

The person who understands your work best may never write a word. She simply signs for every attempt you make at your life, the way you sign for an important document.

There is a drawer in his study now. It holds the thirty-seven letters and a stack of annotated manuscripts. When a young writer asks him the secret of keeping at it, he opens the drawer and takes out the first page with its note, opening too slow, and then the last one, the opening drags you straight in. "The secret," he says, "is finding someone willing to read you all the way from too slow to drags you in. As for the money —" he smiles — "don't forget to send her a share."