It was one year ago this week I sat down at my laptop and started writing FINDING SETH. I didn’t know, then, that was what my first novel would be called. I didn’t know a lot of things.
I didn’t know how competitive the book publishing industry was. I didn’t know how frustrating and belittling it would feel to have your novel rejected. I didn’t know I’d be sitting here now, one year later, still light years away from any hope of publication.
I do know that it was a gloomy January week, much like this week. I was struggling with the annoyances of bronchitis, much like this week. There was no exciting Packer game to look forward to (dramatic sigh…) just like this week.
As I look back on my first year as a would-be novelist, it would be very easy to get discouraged. After all, no more than a handful of agents have expressed any more than a passing interest in my novel. My friends and family have been amazingly supportive, but I have a suspicion they would’ve said they liked the book even if it was complete gibberish. (Thanks a million, though, you guys. You totally rock.)
I’ve made some amazing new friends this past year, thanks to the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. And I’ve read probably some of the best quality women’s fiction of my life, simply because now I know where to look and who to trust for book recommendations. So there’s that to be hopeful about.
I’ve also started not one but two new manuscripts — both pretty much in the same women’s fiction genre. One of them, based upon a journalist who comes across a person with her same name in an obituary and becomes obsessed with finding out who this person was, has some historical and mystery elements to it. The second one is about a woman who’s trying to fulfill her mother’s dying wish by finding her half-sister — the child her mother bore as a surrogate decades before. It’s slow work but hey, it’s a Wisconsin winter. I’ve got time đŸ˜‰
So I can choose to be negative, or I can choose to be positive. I can embrace the new year, or I can fall victim to my new fears: What if all this is for nothing? What if I never, ever, ever find an agent? What if I put in all these hours, devote all this time and energy to a craft that I fall in love with more and more every day only to find that the publishing world simply does not have room for me? What then?
As I often do when faced with a personal dilemma, I think about what advice I would give to one of my daughters if she ever came to me with a similar situation. And as I pondered this, I came back to a quote that I love by Erin Hanson:
“There is freedom waiting for you,
on the breezes of the sky.
And you ask, ‘What if I fall?’
Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?”
That is what is giving me hope tonight. That is what is moving me along, pushing me to continue writing. To keep working on my query letter. To keep researching agents. To keep revising and revamping my manuscript. To hang on and hold on, even when the doubts seem to be overwhelming.
New fears? Yes, I definitely have those in abundance. But this moment is not for wallowing in self-doubt. I wouldn’t allow my girls to do so — why would I give that permission to myself?
(Thanks as always, dear readers, for joining me on this journey!! xoxo, LB)