Writing to Get Better
I’m a recovering published writer. There, I said it. It’s an addiction of sorts: once you’re published by a major house, nothing else seems as good or as real or as valuable.
Yet the stark reality is that times have changed since I first stumbled into getting an agent in 2003, and my first novel was published in 2005. I remember being astonished that my books would be released by Touchstone of Simon and Schuster not only as trade paperbacks, but as eBooks. So new! Such a radical thought!
When my novels didn’t sell like gangbusters and my editor left after the second one, my then-agent nudged me into YA, saying my youthful heroines were borderline YA anyhow. I wrote a YA historical that he sold to Bloomsbury USA Children’s only a month or so after I’d finished it. This publishing game was easy! [Caveat: writing is never easy. I only thought I’d stepped onto a conveyor belt that would carry me into the future, assuring that at the end of each gut-wrenching struggle to produce a manuscript would be a beautifully bound book taking up valuable space on bookstore shelves.] Three more contracts followed, all for YA historicals. Then my life got a little complicated, and I wasn’t paying close attention when the fourth one was published and, oh dear, my editor left the publishing house.
By then it was 2012. The entire world of publishing was going through a crisis of identity. Self-publishing had broken through as people embraced eBooks (myself included: I live with my devices, although I have hundreds of paper books and still buy them).
In the last six years I have completed three historical novel manuscripts that have not sold and started several others. I worked with my agent to try to write something that would sell in this crazy, competitive market where I am hampered by my previous sales record, but ultimately realized that his vision of what kind of writer I needed to be clashed with the kind of writer I actually am, for better or worse. There are good writers who can decide to change their stripes and write what the market demands. I discovered after much anguish that I am not one of them. Writing a novel is too hard for it not to be a labor of love, start to finish, at least for me.
As soon as my agent fired me a couple of weeks ago (it was a good thing really; I would never have cut the cord but it needed to be cut), I started querying agents with my most recent manuscript. I had a request for a full but an ultimate no, and a few more nos of the “not for me” variety. I haven’t heard back from a lot of them, and I’m going to do a Twitter pitch event tomorrow.
Being back in that mode of complete outsider has had several interesting effects. First, of course, it’s caused a crisis of confidence in my ability to write. I never got an MFA. I never even took a creative writing course. I’ve read dozens of craft books and attended several very useful one-day workshops—and I went to Breadloaf. But really, what do I know? Trying hard to twist the way I write and what I write about into something acceptable to a fickle marketplace I think sent me backwards, not forwards. Oh, when I look at those three manuscripts I still think they fundamentally work. But are they good enough?
Writers have inner critics that are never silent. Without them, our messy first drafts would never become polished final drafts. In this case, though, I think my inner critic is onto something bigger. I need to look at this phase in my writing life not as failure, but as opportunity. The market doesn’t appear to want what I write—so be it. That merely frees me from expectations that are bound to be disappointed.
I have decided to embrace this freedom from publishing expectations to do what I should have done years ago. I wish I could find the original quote so I could properly attribute it, but as someone wiser than I am said, “Don’t write to get published. Write to get better.”
Second, I’ve rediscovered reading for sheer pleasure, reading books that aren’t just for research or because one of my many talented and generous writer friends have written them. I’m reading up. I mean, reading books that are so fabulous I know nothing I write will ever be able to compare, and I’ve been thinking about them, why are they so spectacular, marveling at the craft and being blown away by the artistry. This sort of reading used to depress me a little, but now I’m finding it inspiring. I can write better. I can do the work, be hard on myself, and keep pushing for truer, more honest and careful writing, more adventurous writing, writing that makes me uncomfortable. I can. Because I want to.
Of course, I’d be kidding myself if I pretended that every new publication announcement by one of my friends didn’t give me a twinge of envy. OK, more than a twinge. I’m genuinely happy for them, mind you. But I have to let go of believing that publication by a big house is the only measure of success. I’ve got six beautiful volumes whose spines bear my name. It’s more than many writers are able to accomplish, for whatever reasons. Does it really matter if that’s all I’ll ever have? Because I won’t stop writing. Writing will always give me more intense pleasure and challenge than any other activity I engage in.
And you know, if I decide I have to have that one, two, or three more books to round out my offerings to the world, I can self-publish or co-op publish.
In the end, it’s all about what I need from my writing. I don’t think I have the final answer to that, but I’ve definitely turned a corner.
This recovering published writer is ready to face her challenges and move on to a more constructive way of looking at writing. For me, that’s a huge step. I’ll let you know how I get on.
