Persistence

So, you’ve heard about writers sending out queries to dozens of agents and receiving dozens of rejections. Rejection is part of the getting published gig. And not just dozens of rejections—I don’t even want to say how many I received over the course of nearly four years. I sent my first STORY FOR A SHIPWRIGHT query in December of ’08 and received my last rejection in August this year. I won’t say how many—lets just round down to 200. And it wasn’t that my query wasn’t strong (okay, probably my first 25-50 were terrible!) or the story was awful. I received an encouraging amount of requests for partials and my full manuscript with a lot of very positive feedback—just no takers. The problem? The market; that and my story didn’t fall into a tidy genre. I was told “this kind of well-made novel is almost impossible to sell in this horrible market”...“especially in these recessionary times.  It's that old thing about deserving to be published, but not yet being published.”

Yeah, it’s been really discouraging. I can’t say that it didn’t undermine my feelings about my novel and my writing abilities—I wondered if all the disappointment and battered self-esteem was worth it. Yet, it seemed that with all the time I had invested, I should follow through on my plan—if I’ve lacked in skill and knowledge of how the industry works and what genres are ‘salable’, I do make up for it in persistence. A large part of me feels the need to follow through once I’ve made a commitment. I’ve always maintained that I will publish one way or the other, and I’ll be proud of that. If nothing else, I know that we writers are a rare breed that combines imagination with commitment and courage. That’s a pretty cool distinction!

My motto has become: Just keep moving forward—and whatever you do, don’t look down!

This post is part of the Insecure Writer's Group, sponsored by Alex J. Cavanaugh.

So, What Exactly Have I Been Doing?

Over the past weeks, I have been spending much less time blogging (a great diversion during ‘writer’s block’), and a whole lot of time writing—finally. Some of that time has consisted of re-writing—not simply revising—earlier work. As a result, I have come to realize something very empowering. I have progressed as a writer!

When I completed my first novel over 20 years ago, somewhere deep down inside—as proud as I was of it—I knew it was crap. I couldn’t define exactly why, but I knew it was. I stuck it in a drawer and there it remains.

Exactly 4 years ago, I gave voice to another story that wouldn’t leave me alone. I hadn’t a clue about good writing, but that wasn’t my focus. I simply had a story I wanted to tell. My husband was out of town for five weeks and I decided to share that story with him. When he called every evening, I read what I had written. I had never felt the serotonin levels spike the way they did the summer I wrote Girl Running. I LOVED WRITING. As an added perk, after 17 years of marriage, I surprised and impressed my Todd.

Then I wrote the sequel, Portrait of a Protégé. Still, I didn’t know the ‘rules’ of good writing and so my words and the story had free reign. When I finished, I loved the story, but I knew my writing had problems—and I had no idea what they were, let alone how to fix them. It was frustrating, but didn’t stop me from writing some more.

So, I moved on. I finished the first draft of Story for a Shipwright two years ago, simultaneous with my blogging debut, and I started to learn and to revise.

Now, I’ve gone back to Girl Running and Protégé. Oh my goodness, what a revelation. Now I can see the problems: I was in love with:
• Long, convoluted sentences: the more semi-colons and em-dashes; and; as; but;—not to mention however and nevertheless—the better! (you see what I mean)
• Big, obscure, eye-rolling words (words that even I can’t remember what they mean)
• Switching POV willy-nilly. Oh my! Talk about head-hopping
• Long, descriptive passages filled with adverbs and other modifiers
• Passive voice and weak verbs
• Pointless scenes
• Back-story info dumps
• Redundant dialogue tags
And the list goes on and on…including my whopping 150+K and 120+K word counts

However, I did find some good.
• Some strong characters with good potential
• Moderately tight plots
• Good, well thought out dialogue, much of it salvageable (even if it was buried in long descriptive tags.)
• Some nicely turned phrases that I could easily recycle
So, that’s what I’ve been up to—writing for the fun of it, finally knowing how to bring out the best in these stories. I am so excited to find joy in my writing again!

…and thanks to Michelle David Argyle at The Innocent Flower who continues to post honestly about the emotional ups and downs of writing versus publishing, helping me sort out my own expectations.

Lessons Learning

For the past couple weeks I’ve been writing up a storm. I haven’t had this much fun stringing together words since before I started querying. After a long dry spell, depression break, I was beginning to wonder if I’m a writer at all—perhaps this writing thing is just another one of the many projects I have undertaken and completed, and now it’s time to move on. I hated to resign myself to that, but—well, writers write, and I wasn't writing. At all.

There are a number of creative outlets I enjoy and have become proficient at, some of which I have never gone back to, but the two endeavors to which I always return are painting and writing. Art has always had the upper hand. There is something about the visual that allows me the immediate satisfaction of knowing I’ve improved. It’s tangible. I can see it in front of me. I still see the flaws, but the results are good enough to pleasantly surprise me. Being married to an accomplished artist helps—he’s always there, with validations. He’s honest and I trust his opinion.

Writing has been an altogether different experience. Yes, I am one of those insecure artist types, always looking for validation within a very subjective realm. How will I know if or when I’m good enough? And ‘Good Enough’ for what? To impress friends and family? For publication? Will my husband or my sister tell me? Or perhaps a fellow writer. Perhaps an agent, reviewer of publisher?

If I’ve learned a lot about myself over the past few years of writing and blogging, I have learned ten times as much in the span of two months, while writing nothing—while not even being able to read because I allowed it to make me feel even more inadequate. Here are a few things I’ve learned:

• I hate feeling as if I have wasted time with nothing of value to show for it.
• I have learned that ‘value’ is very subjective.
• I’ve learned that the ultimate validation only exists in the form of self-acceptance.
• That the euphoria I experience when fully immersed in writing can not be reduced to words. It can not be measured against the critical eye of another.
• I love my stories, and I love my characters and I love the imaginary worlds I have built.

All of these are things I already knew intellectually, but now I’m finally getting it. I know I will continue to have my moments, but at least I can refer back to this post, where I have declared it to the world…