Today, when yet another agent rejection had me sitting in a graveyard crying for over an hour, I took a good, hard look at my manuscript. For six years, I've been routinely putting pieces of my soul into this book, and now I'm afraid I'll have to cut it off before there's nothing left for me. Before I have nothing left to give.
But I don't want to let go. I can't give this manuscript up. It's going to be the next bestselling fantasy of our age. It's going to win a Hugo. There's going to be a movie, and an A-list actor is going to star the lead, and it's going to win Oscars. There's going to be fanfiction. And fan art. And fan theories. Teachers are going to discuss my book in classes. Publishers are going to fight over getting the right to publish it. I just have to make it good enough. These are all dream's I've been nursing for years, so why, at the thought of giving them up, was a part of me secretly relieved? Lately, this book has given me nothing but anxiety, grief, and sleep deprivation. It used to be fun. Where did it all go wrong? Did I take a wrong turn somewhere? Did I beat the dead horse too thoroughly? Did I put too much pressure on publication? Or is the story itself the problem? Is there something intrinsically wrong with it, making it so that I can never be satisfied with it? Just like writing used to be fun, this story used to be fun. Did I almost completely rip off of Eragon (never mind the irony there) and the Lord of the Rings in drafting it? Yes. Absolutely, I did, but I had fun doing it. Now, it's all very literary and eloquent and unique and absolutely and devastatingly boring. Of course I'm getting rejections when I can't even stand my own writing anymore. I've forgotten the spirit of the thing. I've forgotten what first made me say, "Yes, this story. This is the story I have to tell!" I've forgotten that novice writer, sitting in her high school English class, who had the idea to write a book. A wonderful book with magic and friendship and heartbreak and the classic conflict of evil versus good. I've forgotten how much fun it was to create my characters, to watch them grow and develop. I've forgotten how much fun it was to create a world from the ground up, to create something entirely new, knowing that no one in the world could replicate what I'd just made. Publications, movies, awards-- those things aren't why we write. Sure, there are some people who write for those things. They're out there and they're dangerous. But those reasons aren't why I write. Not why I used to, at least. I wrote because it was fun. I wrote because it saved me from reality. I wrote because writing made me feel like I could do anything. Now, with all the pressure I put on my writing, I feel like I can't do anything. Now, writing only ever reminds me of reality, making me think of the current market or whether an agent would approve of a change or whether such and such plot device would be criticized by readers. Now, writing isn't fun, but now I know why. This manuscript is never going to be what it's supposed to be until I stop trying to write the best story and go back to writing for me, for the joy of it, for the love of writing. For those of you who are in the same situation, feeling like you're stuck telling a story you're no longer interested in, I advise you to stop and think about it before you decide to give up. Think about why you started writing, and think about why it had to be that story. It could be you've forgotten something very important about yourself, about your story, about your writing. Go back to that. Make your writing fun again. Don't care about what anyone else thinks. Write for you.
1 Comment
I see that you wrote this last year, but I stumbled on your page today. I can relate to this so much. I haven't even been rejected yet, because I'm too afraid to submit to editors, or agents, or publishers. It's difficult to write sometimes. I hope your story finds a way out into the world. I'd love to read it!
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AuthorAspiring fantasy author currently stuck in the querying trenches. Archives
February 2019
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