I’m at that stage. The one where you’re all up in your own face, shoving yourself against walls to get the truth out, shouting, Think you can do it? Really? Really, can you do it? SHOW ME.
Or maybe I am the only writer who shoves herself up against walls as some kind of masochistic motivational ritual.
Anyway, can I do it?
Can I really?
I went to bed assured and determined—my Twitter relapse last night only worked to harden my resolve. But I woke up scared.
Then I remembered this surprise boost of confidence I got this week when I heard an important someone saying something amazing about me and I thought, He thinks I can do it. And I thought, E thinks I can do it. And my mom thinks I can do it. And my baby sister, who is a great inspiration for the novel, thinks I can do it. And do you think I can do it, do you?
January 4 is mere days away. Back to it.
There’s a lot going on in the world right now, here and elsewhere, things I’m upset about or stressed over that I won’t go into, but I’m trying so hard to keep the troubles at bay while I finish up this manuscript—which will magically transform itself into a completed first draft by end of this year (if not a couple days into 2010; I refuse to be disappointed in myself if that happens).
E says I get a present when I complete the first draft, but not before, since it would only be a distraction.
I’ve already given myself this, but it’s not supposed to ship till January 5, so don’t worry it won’t distract me:
"Some Girls Are" by Courtney Summers: you know you want it.
(I want you all to know that I have read an earlier form of Some Girls Are by the astounding Courtney Summers and it’s so searing and fearless I love it so much and I must own my own copy. When it arrives, I plan to read it again.)
It’s gotten starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, but I’m giving it my own star because I said so. Go pre-order it right now.
But I think E will get me a first-draft-completion present too—he’s seen how hard I’ve been working. He knows I want this:
"Too Much Happiness" by Alice Munro: must read this.
Is there ever a point in life when you can read too many Alice Munro stories? I would say no. I used to want to write like her. I now only want to write like myself, but I will continue to read her engrossing stories as I did before because my addiction to short stories abounds, and she’s a master.
I also want this (maybe these, maybe some others):
Because it’s winter and I didn’t get boots last year (because they were all HIDEOUS; yes, fashion industry, your boots were HIDEOUS) and even though it’s possible to avoid most snowbanks in the city by leaping the curbs, my feet did get cold and I think I just need something practical. (Apologies to my baby sister; I refuse to get those ugly stumpy boots everyone says are so warm and comfortable… HIDEOUS.)
But mostly, as a reward for finishing my first draft, I want this:
I want the significant people in my life to like my first draft. Honestly, leave me bootless and bookless all winter and I’ll be OK, just so long as someone was pleased by what I’ve written.
I’m a childish, insecure, fragile writer, what can I say? Please, please like me.
What would be the best first-draft-completion present ever? Give me ideas and I’ll tell E. Please, nothing expensive, so that knocks out Hawaii. Also, please don’t try to convince me to get Uggs. I would wear garbage bags over my sneakers before putting those monstrosities on my feet. I will not be swayed.
I find this amusing. Here’s what I wrote on December 31, 2008, revealing what my “resolutions” would be for the year 2009:
I was going to make a list. You know, do it up right. Use bullet points. Set target dates. I was going to set out viable, approachable writing goals for myself. No goals like “sign with a literary agent,” because I have absolutely no control over whether I can get myself an agent in 2009 and I don’t want to measure myself by outside forces; I have no power over what someone else will or will not love. So my goal is not to get an agent. I have a book coming out in September 2009, but my goals will not include aspiring to any kind of Amazon ranking, or selling enough copies to earn out my advance, or getting stars on reviews, or getting reviews at all, or even having some readers like it (though, believe me, I really really really really really am sitting here hoping some readers will like it). Again, all that: outside forces, relying on others, out of my control. My writing resolution is simply something I can make myself do before the year is over:
I will finish my new novel in 2009.
That’s it.
Happy New Year!
So, looking back on the year 2009, the book did come out, it got reviewed, it got read, some people did like it, so… success? I think it went well.
But it’s especially amusing when I said that in 2009 “my goal is not to get an agent.” I now see how the universe works. I get it. So when you outright say that you are NOT trying to do something, only then does the universe decide you are allowed to have it.
Tricky.
Also, many other enormous things happened to me in 2009, and I was absolutely not expecting any of them. (Except the bad things; I await bad news with cookies, that’s how I am.) But the good? Never in a million years. So maybe another way the universe works is to surprise you when you are absolutely least expecting it and didn’t even know to ask?
Hm. Like I said, tricky.
I’m going to have to think really long and hard about the things I don’t want for 2010, that’s for sure!
Oh, and that little goal from last year saying I will finish my new novel in 2009? Curious about that one? We’re down to the wire, we’re racing ahead, we may die trying… but, yeah, I think there’s a good chance that might actually be met! If you’re flexible on what you’d call “finish,” that is.
Did anyone else’s resolutions come true—or not come true—from 2009?
Times like these, when I am determined to stay glued to the laptop until I finish this chapter, and the free pretzels and M&Ms at the writing spot have lost their luster, and it’s cold out, and the chair is comfortable and I don’t want to get out of it, and I have so much work left to do on the end of the book that I wake up some mornings and think it’s impossible and everyone knows it’s impossible and they’re all out there laughing at me, and it’s almost four o’clock, and I didn’t bring anything to eat with me today, I think about how it would be really cool if there were a special delivery/motivational service for writers—you wouldn’t have to stop writing to call them. You could just email in your order, and they’d swing by and sit beside your desk and feed you bites of food while you typed. And when you were done, they’d wipe the crumbs off your face, massage your stiff neck, and then slip away quietly. They’d leave a note beside your laptop: YOUR SCENE IS BRILLIANT, YOU ARE WONDERFUL, I LOVE EVERY WORD YOU’VE WRITTEN TODAY. And, when you weren’t looking, you’d find they’ve answered all your outstanding emails for you and left a nice, refreshing mint on your keyboard.
If such a service existed, I would like someone to tell me my chapter is shaping up okay today. And, also, I’d like a cheese and tomato sandwich. Thank you.
I am taking a break from my regularly scheduled angsting and deadline-driven antisocial behavior to join in Agent Appreciation Day and say a public thank-you to the person who’s making my dreams come true!
About seven-and-a-half months ago I found an agent. That whirlwind day was captured in this breathless blog post where I was initially so in shock over what happened that I was afraid to even type his name… for fear he’d take it back or something.
The agent in question? The awesome Michael Bourret at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.
Since May 1, the day I like to say I “picked” Michael, he put me to work writing more pages for my manuscript, made me revise my synopsis multiple times, and got me to push myself till it was in fighting shape. Then, when it was ready, he went off and—in a whole new whirlwind you wouldn’t believe if I told you—sold my novel based on four chapters… at an auction… to my dream publisher… in a two-book deal, which almost made me faint in shock. Looking back, I’m surprised that I stayed conscious. And all of that is the reason I’m working like crazy right now and I’ve sworn off* social networking till the New Year—because my deadline is fast approaching and I don’t want to let my agent or my new publisher down!
Here are five reasons why I love my agent:
1. He saw something in me I couldn’t see in myself. And his belief in me makes me work harder than ever to prove it true.
2. He “gets” me and he “gets” my novel. He also knows exactly how to handle the sensitive writer type because, Hi, I am Exhibit A.
3. He has vision and he thinks ahead—with my career, with new technologies, with the publishing industry… I feel well-prepared to face the future with him on my side.
4. He is a fighter. And he’s proven this time and again.
5. He makes me feel important. He’s always approachable, he speedily answers every inane question I have, and I know he’s there when I need him.
I have to add another reason, because:
6. Oh and yeah, there’s that little part I should mention about how he’s making my dreams come true. Seriously, who does that? Oh I know: Michael Bourret.
I know I got lucky, and reading all these other Agent Appreciation Day posts makes me see that so many other writers did too! The agent’s job is something I didn’t fully understand before I had one (and I even assisted in a literary agency once). Maybe it’s so hard to explain because a good agent can do so much for you. Michael Bourret is one of the good ones. I hope he knows he’s appreciated!
For a list of all the authors appreciating their agents today, see Lisa and Laura’s blog post. And props to Kody Keplinger for coming up with this great idea!
______
* Haha. Breaking my own rules to tweet this post.
Right now, my novel looks like this:
A long dark tunnel, courtesy of Jon Shave via Flickr
I know, soon, there will be that exciting moment where my middle connects with my end, and the light floods in, and I’ll be able to see my feet before my face, and I’m itching for that because I can barely see a thing now.
Are we there yet?
No?
OK, back to it.
In the meantime, I write, and I write, and I write. Some of it is good. Some of it is not good but is salvageable. Some of it will be buried in the back courtyard where our building keeps the garbage pails and where, at night, it’s best to throw your garbage at the pail from a great distance to avoid the rats.
I’m still off Twitter and Facebook, but I can’t hide away from the world for the whole month. I witnessed a friend’s beautiful wedding this weekend (yes, I got teary!), and I’m starting this new thing where I try (*try*) every week to do something out of my comfort zone that’s somehow related to writing and books—because, so you know, my comfort zone involves a pair of pajamas, a Toblerone, a book I already know I like, and reality TV in the background… and the only person allowed in the zone is E. (More so if he brings me a Toblerone.)
I’m shy. But last night I went to the SCBWI Metro professional series panel where I heard two great YA editors give presentations—and though I do know already about voice and plot, I do get amped up hearing talks and tips about it. I believe you can never learn too much; you can always push yourself to become a better writer, MFA and book in hand or not. At the same time, I wonder if maybe I should be doing something else not also geared toward new writers. Where is that post-MFA, post-book#1, pre-book#2 place for writers to, I dunno, be writers and talk about writing without the focus on submission procedures and agents in there too?
I haven’t found it. And if it exists I have a feeling I can’t go there in pajamas.
It’s important to not ever forget how hard this writing-and-publishing thing is.
My struggles right now on this cool December morning may feel frustrating: I’m writing the big climactic sequence in Act III of my novel and it’s dark in here and I can’t see my own hand before my face and sometimes I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, and sometimes I feel like I won’t make it, and sometimes I question everything, but I’ll figure it out, I’ll write my way through it, I will.
Fact is: No matter how hard I may think this is when I’m deep in it, it was far harder before—when I didn’t have the permission, and the opportunity, to write this novel. Nothing was harder than that.
I think of the other writer friends I know. I have writer friends out on submission with agents. I have writer friends out on submission with editors. I have writer friends on endless submission with editors. Writer friends starting over. Writer friends paused and not sure if they should start over.
Here’s a beautiful post from a writer friend of mine, Jade Park, about rejection. I agree with her when she says:
[R]ejection is like heartbreak. There is only so much you can do, like running and commiserating with friends, to stave off the devastation of heartbreak…but in the end, you have to let the devastation wash over you and run its course. The more in love you were, the greater the heartbreak. The more hope you had in a writing opportunity, the greater the impact of rejection.
But I also have faith in her perseverance and her talent, and I know she’ll make it through.
This weekend another writer friend told me her theory that you should try for things for one year—if you’ve actively tried for one year and haven’t gotten any closer, then it means you should stop. She said it far more eloquently than I did, so please accept my paraphrasing.
I think she was reaching the end of a year of trying for something and was thinking it would soon be time to stop. So I said if I’d followed that theory I would have stopped writing years ago. I wouldn’t have had my first book published or gotten the chance to write this new one.
But then when I admitted I’d gone through years of rejections when I was trying to write for adults… and it was only after I reinvented myself and started writing for young adults that things started happening, she said that didn’t exactly disprove her theory. Because, true, once I started anew, it didn’t take a year.
So maybe it is a matter of reinventing yourself. Or trying—but with something new. A new story? A new manuscript? A new outlook on life? I don’t know. I do know that I don’t think the person who wrote this post in the summer of 2007, less than a year before her first book deal, and less than two years away from her agent and her second book deal, would have heard a word I said. I needed to let the rejection run its course. Maybe I needed to get my heart broken to gain the strength to start over. Maybe it couldn’t have happened any other way.
No one can tell you to keep trying. But I think the main reason I didn’t stop was because I kept asking myself… What if?
How can you ever know the answer to that question unless you try?
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