How Jeff Got His Scar Tissue: Guest Post by Jeffrey B. Burton

Authors must have thick skin (perhaps scar tissue is a better word). It’s mandatory.
You WILL get rejections, lots and lots of them. I’ve received enough to wallpaper the family room with several left over for the kitchen backsplash. And, if any feedback comes along with said rejections, be sure to thank the editor, incorporate any ideas that make sense, blow off any that don’t add up, and, most of all, don’t lose a wink of sleep.
Easy as pie, huh?
Yup, I know, but sit back a minute, relax, put your feet up, and let me tell you the tale of how Jeff got his scar tissue.
My father was a paperboy when he grew up. He delivered newspapers with a childhood chum by the name of Tom Disch. The two of them shared routes and spent mornings tossing daily papers onto front stoops while making up wild adventure stories, each one taking a turn and leaving the other stuck with a cliffhanger.
Well, Tom took all this storytelling to heart and wound up an award-winning science fiction author and poet who wrote under the name Thomas M. Disch. Although Tom wrote cerebral sci-fi and dystopian novels, he may best be remembered for penning the novella, The Brave Little Toaster, which was made into an animated movie that inspired subsequent sequels.
As a child, I met Tom on a handful of occasions. Whenever he blew through St. Paul, Minnesota, he’d drop by our house to visit my father. So, let’s fast-forward fifteen years. I’m a stone’s throw out of college, working a dead-end job in order to pay the rent and, somehow—I simply can’t imagine how—it came to my attention that dad’s boyhood chum, Thomas M. Disch, was writing book reviews for Playboy. (Hey, I only read the magazine for the articles.)
At the time, I could count the number of short stories I’d written on one finger. But the story was a work of genius, I must admit. I would no doubt be going places. That was fairly obvious for all to see.
Of course, they say the human brain doesn’t fully form or mature until age twenty-five, or, in my case, fifty, but let me lay out my plan.
I would send that brilliant story of mine to Thomas M. Disch, care of Playboy magazine in Chicago. He was my father’s oldest friend; he’d owe it a read. Tom would then recognize my brilliance; he’d be so completely blown away he’d scamper down the hallway to share it with Hugh, who, in turn, would cut me a check for thousands of dollars and, in no time at all, I’d be strolling about Hef’s mansion in my robe and slippers.
So, I mailed my short story off, a month passed by, and, to be honest, I was in my early twenties and so wrapped up with what bar the gang would be meeting at each night, I’d practically forgotten about my scheme when the phone rang.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Is this Jeff Burton?”
The hair on the back of my neck began to rise. “Yes.”
“This is Tom Disch.”
Sadly, that was the high-water mark of our conversation. It slid steadily downhill from there. Passengers on the Titanic had a less grueling stretch. Tom, who’d taught creative writing at the university level, was brutally honest with me. And Tom informed me how he thought my story was, in fact, not brilliant. Actually, it was quite the opposite.
Tom did not like it.
Within a minute of picking up the telephone, my kidneys felt as though they’d been smeared against a cheese grater. Repeatedly. And the realization slowly dawned on me—I’d not be frolicking about Hef’s mansion in my robe and slippers, after all.
“I needed a stiff drink before I called,” Tom informed me with a heavy sigh.
After the call ended, I plucked the story off my desk, read through it a final time, and, yes indeed, Tom was right. It needed a major rewrite or, better yet, a quick intro to a lit match. To make matters worse, dang near every paragraph contained a grammatical error or typo of one kind or another.
I felt one inch tall. I felt I’d need the Jaws of Life to un-cringe myself. And though I was alone in my apartment, I wanted to go hide inside the wall closet in my bedroom, all fetal-positioned up, never to come out. Maybe I’d ascertain if the hanging rod could support my body weight.
It took me several stiff drinks, and several more months, before I shrugged the incident off, returned to my writing chair, and dove back in.
So, whenever I receive a rejection letter or harsh piece of criticism from an editor or publisher, I don’t meltdown and I don’t turtle into myself, because—once upon a time—at the spry age of twenty-two, the book reviewer at Playboy called to tell me I sucked.

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 Jeffrey B. Burton's latest mystery/thriller, The Second Grave (Severn House), comes out in February of 2025. The Dead Years (Severn House) came out in March of 2024. Burton's critically-acclaimed Mace Reid K-9 mystery series (St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur) include The Finders, The Keepers, and The Lost. For more information, check out his website at www.JeffreyBBurton.com