Hi, guys. It’s me again. Big thanks to our guest blogger yesterday who was very helpful and awesomely candid. Today, is day three, and in the spirit of true Support Groupage, I’m airing all my deepest, darkest agented-authorly fears. So, try not to laugh. I’m taking a breath. Okay…here I go:
- After I signed with my super agent, I felt like it’d be good to come clean with friends and family about what I was doing with my time—writing. I wanted people to celebrate my big achievement with, I wanted people to appreciate when that big deal did come in and not think that this was something that was so easy it all happened overnight. More importantly, it was sort of weird when people asked what I was doing and I was like, “Oh, just watching TV” or something. Yeah, I’m not that big a couch potato. So, I mean, I was pumped when I signed with Writers House. I mean, how awesome are they? That’s when I told people that I wrote…a lot. Now, having retired book one, I worry that people will think that I’m a failure. Or that they’ll think I’m just some weird girl writing poetry on myspace. Or that I actually can’t write at all. Sure, it’s a little vain. It’s a little silly. But I think deep down, we all worry about what people think sometimes. Our friends in the writing biz and publishing industry know and understand this is a process, a career, and a commitment, but to the folks in our outside lives? It’s sometimes hard for them to understand.
- I worry about disappointing my agent. Agents don’t get paid until we get paid and unless they sell something, they’re working for free. I know that my agent has been wonderful about returning all my emails, usually within 24 hours, and I am just so grateful for how hard he worked subbing my graphic novel. I am so ready to give him something he can sell, which I absolutely plan to do this summer. The only thing that gives me consolation over this deep, dark fear is that I know that I’m at home working hard, too.
- Missing seeing my books in bookstores. Okay, I KNOW this one is silly, but we’re sharing, right? Everywhere I look I see more and more about the changing industry. The focus of bookstores on blockbuster hits. The rise of the e-book format. And I keep worrying that I’ll just miss the whole see-your-book-on-shelves thing. Which thrusts me into the whole what-if thing. What if I’d started writing a few years earlier? What if I’d used this free time or that free time in college to write? What if I’m not writing fast enough? Luckily, I’ve had some great writer friends talk me off that ledge. I do think the whole industry/economy will pick back up and someday, that’s a joy and an accomplishment I will experience.
- When you sign with a reputable agent, you can kind of get this feeling of Okay, I can write. But, there is also this sense of so-close-yet-so-far. It’s hard to feel day after day how badly you want something and wondering how much longer you’ll feel like that. But, as I’ve said before, you’ve also got to embrace that feeling because when it goes away, so might your passion for the craft and for the industry. It’s a love/hate relationship, I guess. With the anticipation, the obsessive attachment to the cell phone. But, I have a fear that I’m going to be a prime candidate for an early heart attack!
So, what are your biggest writing-related fears?
**Be sure to check out The Hopefuls prizes.
2 Comments
June 24, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I think my biggest fear is disappointing my friends and family. Everyone knows I’ve been writing for like, forever. And of course everyone knows I’m working on a novel–from family members to fellow church members to co-workers and my critique group…and of course most of them think it’s going to become an instant bestseller or something, when I told them that’s probably unlikely
Still, I’ve got this pressure to make sure I am published and successful, otherwise I’ll feel like a failure (and unfortunately there are some that will be quick to point out that fact).
I know I need to stop worrying about what others think but it’s hard when I’m asked about my novel nearly every week at some point or another and I have to tell them I’m still pretty far off from the whole book-on-the-bookshelf part.
June 26, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Sorry to still be anon, but I don’t want a lot of google searches coming up with my name that haven’t been authorized by my publisher.
I just want to say — it is a huge deal to get published, and it is so worth the wait it’s not going to matter that it’s taking longer than maybe initially it seemed like it would.
Junot Diaz wrote a couple of novels before he started getting published, novels he says were “awful” and didn’t go anywhere. So did Robert Olen Butler, who talks all about it in “From Where You Dream”, a great book about fiction writing I’ve been really enjoying. The list goes on. I mean, it usually takes at least one novel and one whole-hearted attempt to learn how to do the thing in the first place. And frankly, the writers who seem to just “hit it big” without really trying — well, to put it bluntly, they kind of suck. I mean, they must have some sort of sparkle/ good idea/ personal charisma that comes through in the writing, but in the end it isn’t writing that stands up to time. And in the end — wouldn’t you rather be J K Rowling (who can really write) vs Stephenie Meyer (who was brilliant at capturing a key tension for teenage girls — sex/ yearning/ danger in her story, but really, word for word, is not a literary writer by any stretch.)
I spent a year writing/ finishing a dark, very depressing novel that no one would represent (and I mailed a LOT of queries, many by snail mail b/c I hadn’t yet discovered Agent Query). I did get a few ‘bites’ from agents who said nice things about me as a writer in general but still rejected the novel. I thought it was all over and then I found myself just writing, without a plan really, and working on this book I had put aside a few years before…and then, out of sheer boredom/ impatience, subbing the first chapter to agents and getting a huge response…and then making myself finish the book so I could follow through with the agents who really wanted to see it. But I still didn’t expect anything, and I didn’t expect anything even after I got representation. Not really.
And even now my life hasn’t changed that much. I still have to dig down and write (and try to stay awake despite caring for my beautiful newborn!) and edit and deal with writing along with having a full time job and everything else I have responsibility for…the fact is, there is that euphoria/ giddiness/ celebration on selling your boko to a publisher, but believe me,it passes fast,and in a lot of ways then you’re back where you started, still just trying to write.
I hope that helps. Will really look forward to hearing news of your sale. Take care.