Mandy from Headdesk on the Writing Career

Readers from my blog know that I’ve been working on my novel for a really, really long time. That was a somewhat conscious choice. I never wanted the process to take so long, but I knew it might, if I chose to work through the novel’s problems on their time, instead of pushing for a clean line-edited version with complex internal problems.

But a part of me always wondered, what if things had been a little different? And I think this is a question all aspiring authors struggle with—when to start their writing careers, what if it’s the right time, what if it isn’t. What is it like to be one of the up-and-comings of publishing?

Yeah. That would be Chandler Craig, who’s one of the uppiest and comingest writers I’ve ever met. In case you haven’t noticed. Which I’m sure you have. She’s already been on my blog talking about being the “Jumpstarter” and today, I’m here to talk about being…

The Apprentice

In “The Pocket Muse” Monica Wood wrote,

“When I was thirty-three years old, I wanted nothing more than to publish a book of short stories…The yearning was so intense I was often sick with it. I had begun writing seriously at twenty-nine, and now, at thirty-two, I was ready to hold a book in my hands and say, ‘I wrote this.’ …[But] the story collection I was so bent on getting into the world never appeared.

…Respect your apprenticeship.”

I can remember when, in my early teens, I joined my very first writer’s forum populated mostly by young adults writing fanfiction. Everyone there encouraged everyone else to get published. It was thrilling to have those kinds of comments, but I wasn’t stupid; I read other books. I knew my writing wasn’t anywhere up to par. At least not yet.

And so that little forum was where I learned about the tension between desiring to achieve publication, and working through your apprenticeship, becoming serious about the craft.

The tricky part for me was, how would I know when I was good enough? How could a person tell it was time for them to begin pursuing a published career? I was too young to tell if I was too young to tell.

Later, as I started to get a better grasp on the publishing industry and concepts like breaking out, reaching your advance, or getting stuck in the midlist, I found myself asking another question. Was it better to jump right into publishing and build up my career with lots of submissions, a few credits, small novels? Or was it better to focus my energies on writing a solid novel to start my career with?

So I had this choice. Jump in, or hang back.

This was tough—a ton of other amazing writers around me were jumping in. Like Monica Wood said, sometimes I yearned for publication so much it made me sick. Even as a then-teenager I’d been writing for years. I’d abided my time, and in that sense, was ready.

So I made myself a promise. When I could write a novel that survived being whipped into submission-readiness, I’d go ahead and submit it.

Thus began the toe-dipping. I started networking, began a writing blog, and started subbing whatever short stories I could scrap together. It was thrilling to have that first taste of what the publishing career might be like. I suspected that if I wanted to jump in, I could probably make it, and that confidence boost was a huge. All I needed was a novel.

Actually, I had a novel; but the one thing needed to do most was the one thing I couldn’t quite accomplish—finishing it. I kept pushing and I kept pushing, and all at once I realized the only reason I wasn’t trunking it was because I didn’t want to give up on the idea of publishing it.

That was my second turning point. Coming to understand that my novels and I needed time, that this was a good thing, but that it also meant putting the “career” on hold.

It was absolutely freeing, and so that’s exactly what I did.

Thanks, Mandy! Can’t wait to have you back next Thursday with why your experience worked!

Mandy runs the awesome blog *Headdesk* where she goes by the name Creative A, the online persona for an ordinary girl, full-gospel Christian, novelist, and Web Design major. She’s a big fan of speculative fiction for young adults. Her own novel, MIRRORPASS, is a speculative YA undergoing edits. She’s published several small works of fiction and nonfiction in the past.

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