When I read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, I knew nothing of her politics and read the novel free from preconceived notions and the knee-jerk recoil of a liberal consciousness. Instead, I waded through hundreds of pages, and my affinity for Howard Roark grew resolute as I witnessed the protagonist lead readers through a social commentary aligned close to my heart. A visionary, Roark's unique perspectives, creativity, and conviction placed him alone at the forefront of a counterculture, opposing the dominant behaviors of his contemporaries and their predilection for popular demands, subservient to herd mentality.
Often in society, people claim that to be unique is to be special and rare, exceptional and extraordinary—something or someone to be exalted and praised. However, far more often, the mass subconscious aligns with the negative connotations of being truly unique and result in one being perceived as anomalous and strange, unimaginable—and as such, alone. Even the Oxford English Dictionary classifies this reality, and first and foremost defines unique to mean "of which there is only one; single, sole, solitary." To be solitary is to be alone, unaccompanied—the harsh reality of those who are considered sui generis. The unenlightened masses, unable to comprehend the possibilities proposed by visionaries and fearful of risk, deject that which is unique and cling to the security of that which is commonplace—forcing those who are truly special and rare, exceptional and extraordinary to defend their convictions and fight for what is handed out freely among pop culture artists.
Today, perhaps seven or eight years since I first read The Fountainhead, I find myself again feeling aligned with Roark's crusade as I wonder how I might possibly convince literary agents and publishers to consider my manuscript worthy of their risk. It's well-known that publishing is a conservative arena, a commercial endeavor with very little guarantee of ROI (return on investment). How can I convince anyone to publish my book, Mantra'matic, when the odds (and rules and restrictions) are stacked against me?
Notably, the most essential requirement for submitting one's manuscript is the condition that the writer send the first five pages of the document within the body of a query email; it is noted in the instructions that if one sends an attachment, the query will be disregarded. This stipulation alone excludes Mantra'matic from the submission pool as it is uniquely like none other even in its formatting, which eludes any possibility of conforming to the rules with its puzzle-pieced preface and substantial redactions that black-out most of chapter one.
When I try writing a query that communicates the brilliance of Mantra'matic, which my professors, colleagues, and friends have deemed "amazing," "successfully complex," "transcendent," and "like nothing [they've] ever read," I find myself writing in circles trying to explain the complexity that is so eloquently laid out in the quick-read, which is the book itself.
One professor, who closely advised me in the early writing of the book, once said in awe that it was "going to be an important piece of literature [to the cannon]." Feeling the poignancy of life experience that Mantra'matic offers coupled with its original system of writing, I agree. And again and again this ideation is reiterated from both readers and audiences who have heard selected excerpts. Yet, like Roark, the genius of my creation may never be realized—forever in search of an extraordinary publisher willing to take a risk on a book equally extraordinary.