Being a writer means being a living, breathing contradiction. The funny thing about us writers is that we are often sensitive, self-deprecating introverts, and yet we have to cultivate a very thick skin, develop a work ethic that defies the little voice in our heads that says “why bother?”, and we have to sell ourselves. For the most part, no one is paying us or even paying that much attention. Most days it’s just us alone at our computer screens or notebooks, trying to craft something that doesn’t make us want to vomit and bemoan this very desire to create. Some days we just want to give up. We want to watch bad reality TV (my current vice is HGTV, anything with buying, selling, or fixing up houses…when did I become my father???), we want to drink that bottle of Jack Daniels, we want to take up hiking or knitting or math, anything that has a clear-cut path, a solution from A to B. But even if we quit for a day, it returns: that gnawing, nagging feeling that we’re neglecting something crucial, something that needs to be done.
So if giving up isn’t an option, where does that leave us? As some old writing friends and I are gearing up to go to this year’s AWP conference in Seattle, I’ve been thinking a lot about my own journey with writing. Three years ago, when the same conference was held in Denver, several of us went to a panel (I just found a great essay that not only reminded me of the title of the panel, but also reflects further on its ideas: The Long Hard Slog: From the 2010 AWP Panel “From MFA Thesis to First Novel”). I’ve seen many panels and readings at these conferences. I’ve been starstruck by big name writers (John Irving, Amy Hempel, and Michael Chabon come to mind) and I’ve scribbled many frantic notes, trying to suck in as much sage advice as possible. But this one panel has always stuck with me. Always. These were writers who had been where I’d been, who’d started with a small idea and stuck with it. They had slogged through years of rejections and come out on top. They weren’t rich or famous, but they had published books. And not just any books, the books that had been their MFA theses. After the panel, my friends and I reconvened (some of us not even realizing we had been in the same room until it was over) and chatted about how inspiring the talk had been. There was one line that all of the panelists had agreed upon that my friends and I couldn’t stop thinking about: the journey from thesis to published book generally takes about eight years.
It was unfathomable. At that point, we’d all been diligently working on our books for anywhere from two to three years. Five to six more years seemed like a lifetime. And yet. I’m currently sitting on the six year mark from when I first sat down in a dark study carrel at UNM’s Zimmerman Library to begin scratching out ideas for my first book. I’ve come a long way since that day. I’ve been through ten drafts, a dissertation defense, several contests, many rejections, a few full requests, and I think I’m better for all of it. But it’s scary too. What if that eight year mark comes and goes and it’s just a number, some arbitrary goal I gave myself that turns out to mean nothing? Recently an agent requested my full manuscript and I was over the moon. When the rejection came, she had some compliments and some notes that were helpful, pointing out ways that the plot and characters might have been lacking. To me, these are a) fixable and b) subjective. But the part that made all of the air go out of the room was when she said that there were a lot of YA books that deal with my subject matter and that because of this, it would be tough to sell it to publishers. Does this mean that I’m dead in the water? Is it possible to make other changes and write it so well that a publisher would want to publish it regardless?
I have other projects I’m working on–a second novel, short stories, a novella–so it’s not as if I have nothing else in me. They also say to “kill your darlings” and I wonder if that’s what the situation might call for. Was this first book just one big exercise, a teaching tool that I’ve grown unbearably attached to? I’m not ready to call it yet, but I have come to terms with the fact that it might be a real possibility down the line. Until then, I continue on with these characters, making my journey theirs, and theirs mine.
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