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“She loves me. She loves me not. She loves me.”

The conclusion: my bride really does love me. She cares for me and her WIP is not intended to hurt my feelings or harm my ego. She offers WIP on occasion because she really loves me.

Whether your spouse is a darling husband or a wonderful bride, you too may suffer through occasional bouts of WIP. After reading further, I hope you will see its origin and true purpose. My bride does not want me to be continually rejected. She must reason that it is not good for a man to be beat down so often with slips of paper that read:

“Dear author, don’t you know the picture book market died years ago and there is no such thing as life after death? I wish you luck in placing this manuscript elsewhere. Signed, The editors.”

Okay maybe my rejects aren’t that bad. How about yours? Let’s face this one warm and fuzzy fact, spouses that offer WIP don’t do so to hurt us. They simply want to protect us from our insatiable desire to keep on writing, which often leads us to depression, desperation, and a ravenous desire for chocolates, or in my case, White Castle hamburgers.

Well Intentioned Pessimism can take many forms. My least favorite is “You’ll never get published.” A new one I’ve heard recently is, “Published writers have so much education.” I’m not so sure I like what that implies. The best way to negate WIP in your household is not to be negative yourself. Don’t talk about how soft the picture book market is right now or you might hear this one, “You said yourself that the picture book market is soft right now.” There she goes, my wife Polly, the picture book market prognosticator. No, my wife’s name is not Polly. I’m just protecting the innocent. Yes, she really is innocent…and sweet too.

I have to admit that my wife listens to me read every one of my picture book manuscripts. She does not particularly love to hear me re-read a book in which I’ve only changed five or six words. But she is a trooper and hears me out most of the time. She gives me encouragement when I’m feeling a little down about my writing. She has even mentioned my picture books during our night time prayers as of late. I have come to understand that Well Intentioned Pessimism is simply her vicarious frustration of being a writer. Instead of me getting frustrated and wanting to give up, it is her wanting to fold the cards in this high stakes ego game called writing. As husband and wife, we are one. So when I get rejected, my bride feels rejected too.

If any of you have a pessimistic spouse in your house (at least on some occasions), do not forget the love deep down inside of those negative words. Learn to love that pessimism. Learn to love the warm and tender fact that your spouse is taking your rejection hard, albeit, a little harder than you. Pluck some needles off a cactus with me, “She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me. Owwww!”