On Joys of Being Unpublished

My last blog was ages and ages ago, sorry about that. Work took up all time last quarter because I decided to teach an overload—bad decision—of a class I’d never taught before. Then Christmas came, then my computer crashed, and the normal cycle of life happened where writing seems to take a backseat.

The good news is I’m still writing and meeting with my critique group; the bad news is I still don’t have a book deal. Or is that actually bad news?

I have a few writer friends who are very successful and have been churning out at least a book a year for a while now. They often tell me to enjoy the pre-published phase of my career because I’ll never again have the luxury of spending time on each creative project. I usually smile pleasantly and say “thank you” or make a comment about how much I enjoy the creative process. On the inside though, I’m green with envy and seething with thoughts like “easy for you to say, you’re getting paid for your prose.”

Sure, sure, I understand that demanding deadlines and endless galley proofing are the pits. I also completely understand about needing to vent when you’ve moved a comma around for a month and your editor still wants you to find a better place for it. But aren’t those things we have to put up with if we want to make a living as a writer? And, don’t we all just suffer through rejection after rejection because we hope we’ll someday be able to quit our day jobs? Hopefully someday soon?

I know I do, or at least I used to be mostly focused on the part of my career that’s going to happen after my book appears in stores. You know, the day my publisher sends me out on an all expenses paid book tour and I get wined and dined by bookstore owners and fawned over by adoring fans. Yeah, I know—-DREAM ON!—but seriously, publishing a book is a major career goal for me.

A few weeks ago though, I completely changed my mindset from looking at the pre-published phase as something I have to suffer through until I can reap the benefits (if there are any) from calling myself “author.” I finally understood what my more successful friends have been trying to tell me.

I’ve been working on a new book manuscript for a few months and am really struggling. It seemed like a great project when I started writing and I had so much fun creating character back stories and outlining the plot. This is the project I pitched at the Emerald City Conference (last blog post) and several agents wanted to see partials. So it seems like this might even be one of those “commercially viable” projects.

From the beginning though, the writing has been hard. It’s been an uphill path, through mud and quick sand, in a cross-winded snowstorm. Once I thought I finally hit solid ground, only to find a road filled with crater-sized pot holes. Every word seems wrong as soon as I place it on the page. Every sentence is awkward and never close to what I meant to say.

Clinically proven and FDA approved treatment assure for a levitra buy online completely different problem. The chip unica-web.com tadalafil sale includes cialis, Kamagra etc. The entire sex act involves vaginal intercourse & male http://www.unica-web.com/ENGLISH/2017/2017-congress-excursions.html tadalafil samples orgasm. Key ingredients in Spermac capsule are Safed Musli, Gokhru generic levitra cheap Fruit, Kaunch seed, shatavari, Lauh, Pipal, Tejpatra, Kutki, Sudh Shilajit, Dalchini, Long, Tejpatra, Shwet Jeera, Kalonji, Nagbala, Vidarikand, Jaiphal, Ashwagandha and Kaunch Seed. I ended up only sending the first three chapters to one of the agents that requested it, and it took me a while to get it to her. I rewrote those chapters so many times and still they didn’t feel right. But I had to send it though; the agent had been so excited about it. Looking back now, I should have just told her I couldn’t get it right and ask if I could pitch a different project. As it was, she got back to me right before Christmas and said she liked my writing but didn’t “connect” with the book. I don’t blame her, I didn’t feel a connection and I was writing the dang thing.

So three weeks ago, I allowed myself to abandon the project and start another. I didn’t know if this new endeavor would be something worthwhile or what shape it would take. I just sat down to write and the words flowed out of my fingertips like a spring river filled with snowpack melt.  Hours went by without me noticing because my characters were engaged in quick witted dialogue and scenes described themselves on the page. I couldn’t wait to get home from work every day so I could sit down by the computer and spend more time with my story.

The story is still almost writing itself. I can’t stop thinking about what’s going to happen next and I’m having imaginary conversations with the characters about their motivation and goals. I’m seriously hearing voices in my head and seeing vivid scenes that I had no idea I could dream up. I’ve never experienced anything like this. My early drafts are usually a mess of bad pacing, one-dimensional characters, and weak plots. It takes a lot of revising to make my prose worth reading. My critique group members looked at some pages from the first draft of this project and were amazed at how clean they were. There might even have been some comments as to whether or not I’m really the person who wrote them. 🙂

If I was a career novelist, someone who had deadlines and committed promises, there’s no way I could abandon everything and just go with a new project. I could probably get away with spending a few hours on a new story whenever my writer’s block was too severe to continue on the “real” project, but not happily go wherever the muse takes me without as much as a glance back over my shoulder.

A writer friend who signed a four book deal with a publisher had a terrible time with manuscript number three. The first two were fairly painless, but she rewrote the “final” drafts of the third one five times and completely restructured the story each time. Because of the rapidly approaching deadline for turning the thing in, she couldn’t abandon the project. Being a perfectionist, she also couldn’t deliver something she didn’t consider top-notch work. Needless to say, it was a little tense around her house for a while.

So, that’s why I’m lucky I’m not yet an author. I have the luxury to flitter from project to project and follow my creative inspiration, wherever it takes me. I can count the number of hours I write as progress, no matter which project I’m writing on.

Realizing this has changed my attitude toward writing and my writing career. I’ve decided to cherish this pre-published time and truly live in this moment of my journey rather than always keeping an eye on the finish line–that elusive goal of being published.

Hope you are having an amazing writing day and enjoying the  moment, no matter where you are in your career.