How to Keep Making Book Magic When You Feel Like Fitzgerald
I feel like most of my professional frustration is summed up in a comic by artist Beth Evans. In one panel, a girl is feeling proud of her own work. In the next, a giant fanged monster labeled Constancy Comparing Myself to Everyone and Everything is looming over her, saying, "I have a few suggestions."
I've finally decided to embrace my professional frustration. Writing is a brutal effing business, Highness, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. After I signed my debut novel with a small pub I found out that a lot of people don’t take you seriously in the business unless you have a huge online following and an agent. I was also, admittedly, out to prove to my family that I was a “real writer.” (Note: If you write, you're a real writer.) So I decided to work on my social media skills, write a historical romance and get an agent so I could go traditional.
I did all of those things in less than a year, which I’ve been told is impressive. But idk. It just sort of happened. I worked hard, but I think I was also just lucky the first time around.
It turned out none of the big publishers wanted the novel I’d written. I’ve since learned the problem was with the pacing and conflict, edited it, and am publishing it with an indie press. But all of those rejections were a blow to my self-esteem.
When one novel doesn’t pan out, the solution is to write another one. I was feeling really burnt out on histrom after this struggle, and I love fantasy just as much. So I managed to write the first few chapters in a fantasy about queer Icelandic witches. I eventually finished and revised it, sent it to CPs and beta readers, revised again, etc. At one point I changed the entire ms from past to present tense. I removed an entire POV (in the beginning it was dual POV). A CP convinced me to turn it into a YA, because it read like one (all of my characters are young). My agent and I amicably parted ways over this book, although she still reps me for historical. I put so much work into and sacrificed so much for it. So I found myself back to querying. But this time finding an agent wasn’t so easy. I didn’t get many requests, and was mostly getting form rejections. Not to mention that when I tried to get friendly with YA Twitter a lot of them were like:
If you don't believe me, feel free to check out this tweet about this attitude by Twitter user @bookavid that has over 700 likes: https://twitter.com/bookavid/status/1038545111171444736
Then I entered my novel into Pitch Wars.
I had it in my head that as a decent writer with publishing cred I would at least get a ms request from one of the mentors I subbed to. But I didn’t. I found out that Pitch Wars is a HUGE contest with thousands of entrees. And the enormity of what I was up against finally broke my brain. If you look at the hashtag on Twitter, you’ll find plenty of writers losing their shit over it, and plenty more trying to convince you that not getting in doesn’t mean you suck. The hard fact is that everyone CAN’T get in. It’s um, mathematically impossible, you know?
But I happen to know someone from real life who not only got into Pitch Wars, but finished, got an agent and a big book deal, and is now a mentor. I let this bum me out even more, and then felt like trash for feeling bummed, until finally a former mentor reminded me that it's ALL subjective. Yes, Pitch Wars is subjective just like querying.
What with constant book deal announcements, following the PWteasers hashtag, and unending writing advice that screams at you from all sides as a writer on social media, it had started to feel like successful authors as a whole were the Hemingway to my Fitzgerald, if Fitzgerald had been not only clinically depressed and desperate for validation, but like....not successful at all. Most of my tweets only got one or two likes at a time. My promos for my debut novel never got retweets. Does this matter? It felt like it did. I still don't know why this was happening, or how I fixed it.
I questioned everything. My writing talent. My decision to write in two different genres. Being too honest about my mental health and bisexuality. Whether or not the adult who called me a pessimist and a spoiled know-it-all in my childhood was right about me being the worst.
EVERYTHING. Dark stuff.
If you've ever felt like you're not good enough or struggled with thoughts of self-harm, you can understand.
These were my solutions:
-write another book
-deactivate my twitter before it gave me an aneurysm and open a new one.
-basically, excuse my french, but nut up and shutup. It doesn't matter how down you feel, most people dont want to hear it online.
So I did it all. I wrote a 47k word novella in three weeks. It’s the sequel to my historical western romance, and I’m pretty wild about it. I started outlining my next YA fantasy.
I participated in some hashtag games and chats on my new Twitter account and got more interaction with other authors than I have in quite some time. And I'm still getting it! I have 445 followers, friendly affirmation, people offering too look at my first chapters, fun gifs, etc. It turns out that while cool YA Twitter may have rejected me, starting over helped me defeat the algorithm and find a community. Indie author, Pitch Wars hopeful, #amquerying Twitter is just as valid as the rest of Book Twitter, even if they don't go viral as often. I also managed to find some amazing people on the Instagram writing community.
This post is not about how I triumphed over all of this with some magical formula. I'm being real. I do feel better. But I know my brain, and everything is circular. No huge success story here either. I don’t know if I’ll ever get another agent. If I don’t, I’ll have to work my butt off to meet the level of success I desire as an indie author. It requires throwing money into professionally designed covers, professional editors, and paid promos over and over. Before you knock indie authors, know that they work harder than anyone, not only writing, but promoting their own work 24/7.
The daily challenge is to meet the blank page, find the place I knew before social media and dreams of fame and recognition wormed into my brain like parasites, and stay there. The place where all that matters is the thrill of the written word, the story, and the characters I brought to life with my own magic. Stories are arguably the only truly human magic, the only one we created ourselves. The kind of magic that lives on after us, and makes us last forever.
