My first book deal: 2004.
Second book deal: 2007.
Third book deal: 2024.
Seventeen years between book deals, and I have a word for fellow writers: don’t you dare give up.
Travail & Tribulation
Have you been toiling away on a book that doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere? Have you collected enough rejections to fill up two scrapbooks? These are just some of the travails that come with the literary territory. Expect them. Keep working.
Before the days of online backup, I had two hard drives literally catch fire. I lost 150 pages of a novel in Fire #1. A nonfiction project burned up in Fire #2. Of course I was crushed, but later I realized those works were practice runs, intended to help me hone my craft but never meant for publication. It’s okay if you’ve created something that doesn’t really take flight. The act of writing, like kindness, is not wasted. Although some things are not meant to be, everything is a teaching. Be a faithful student.
No Right Way
My publishing history does not follow any prescribed path. When others zig, I zag. Can you relate? Don’t fret if your trajectory looks unorthodox as well.
I should note that I wrote nonstop during those years between book deals. Some examples: I produced a syndicated weekly advice column; HuffPost blog; public history exhibits; essays for regional publications; keynote speeches; and writing events, workshops, master classes, and retreats. All of this with a demanding day job, deaths of loved ones, shifting personal priorities, and so forth.
I guess I’m saying that life happens and unexpected curves appear. It is precisely at those times that we should write. There will be no perfect hour or place to create. If you wait for the mythical muse to appear–or tell yourself you’ll write after this or that is resolved–well, I’ll just call it what it is: self-sabotage.
“Comparisons are odious.”-Teresa of Avila
Authors who churn out books every year really chafe my butt. Am I the only one who finds uber-productive writers annoying? I didn’t think so.
This is because we play the comparison game and then feel like hopeless losers. Stop this now, and focus on your own path. Luckily, Comparison Sickness is entirely curable, and I eventually got there. Make it your business to mind ya own (business).
What if?
What if you never get published? What if the recognition doesn’t come? What if you sacrifice much time and money only to produce a book that dies in obscurity?
We all wrestle with those thoughts. But here’s what I’ve learned over the last seventeen years: write for the wild joy of it, and you’ll always be satisfied.
Since writing is an interior process, external validation should not be the goal. It’s nice when it happens, but it’s fine if it doesn’t. Remember, you will not fret about this on your deathbed.
All in all, the unadulterated joy of creating is sufficient reason to carry on–regardless of worldly outcome. You are compelled and called to tell stories. It is more than enough.
My comrades, continue doing that until the ink in the very last pen is gone.
PS-I’ll be offering the She Who Laughs Writing Retreat in July 2025. Subscribe to the newsletter to get first notice.