Appreciating Every Phase of the Writing Process


I say "appreciate" instead of "enjoy" because I think it takes a sadist to enjoy querying, but during the past week I've done a lot of reflection on where I am today as opposed to where I was a year ago, and I've discovered three surprising things.

1. I'm five months ahead of schedule.

Last September, I decided to write and revise my novel by the time I was a senior in college. I wanted to give my manuscript to beta readers in the fall semester of 2022, and I wanted to start querying in the spring semester of 2023. I'm currently a month into the fall semester, and I've written, revised, started querying, and received requests on my novel. On top of that, I've landed a job as a contracted editor at an independent publishing house, and I'm in the process of co-founding a literary magazine. I've been invited to present my work at three public readings, been published in my third literary magazine, and served on the panel of judges at an SF/F writing convention.

I'm not the type of person to celebrate any of my accomplishments; at the risk of sounding like I'm fishing for compliments, I really am much more inclined to deny that my accomplishments have taken place at all. The only reason I'm able to appreciate these accomplishments right now is because, over the past month, I've made indispensable friends within the Twitter writing community, who have helped me realize...

2. I miss writing as a hobby.

I only joined Twitter to prove I was "already networking" to the agents I'm querying, but less than a day into the app, I somehow found myself...actually networking. To this day, it doesn't feel like work! It just feels like I'm spending time with my friends. We complain and celebrate and talk about what we hate and what we love, and it's helped me realize that most people in the querying trenches feel the same existential terror I do. Everyone gets rejected. Everyone feels hopeless. It's normal, which means I shouldn't give up.

I've realized, though, that sometimes I do miss feverishly drafting my book in absolute solitude, not worrying about comp titles, or agent response times, or marketing trends. I won't say I want to go back to the time before I started querying, because I was pretty much always petrified that I'd never actually finish writing the stupid novel, but as much as I adore the writing community--and I do adore it; I can't fathom how I went without it for so long--I do miss not looking at every book in the bookstore and wondering if it's too similar to mine, or if I should comp it to mine. I don't want this to come off as ungrateful, because I am so, so proud of how far I've come, but I sort of do miss just...writing. That said, I know I have a long way to go. A few requests and a heap of new friends isn't an offer of rep, and it's possible I'll be trapped in the querying trenches for quite some time, but... 

3. I'm operating under the assumption I'll succeed.

You can ask anyone who knows me; I've been stressed about the possibility of being trapped in the querying trenches more than I can say, but while examining that stress over the past week, I've realized that my stress is contingent on the assumption I'll succeed. I can't speak for any other writer, but my stress isn't based on the question, "What if my writing isn't good enough?" My stress is based on the question, "What if I can't find the right agent to champion my work?" When I realized that, it was a short trip on my train of thought to understanding that if I keep querying, I will eventually find the right agent, and when I do find that person, I know I'm going to do well. This isn't meant to sound egotistical; I just know myself. Of course I'll stress over doing revisions, over finding an editor, over making sales, over reading reviews, but bottom line, I know I'll be fine, because I know my brain works best when it has a tangible person to impress.

With that understanding in mind, I feel much safer acknowledging my accomplishments, celebrating my friends' writing successes, and working outside of the past year's self-imposed solitary confinement. Where I am right now is just another stop on the road to publishing, and once I reach my destination, I'm going to look back at all of this, and I know I'm going to cry. I'll cry partially because I'll be nostalgic, but mostly I'll cry because I'm going to have no idea how I did it. So, for the sake of my future self, I need to appreciate the fact that I'm doing it now.

I'm not sure how relatable any of this is, but I hope everyone feels the same way I do, because it's an amazing level of baseline self-confidence that I want everyone to have. I am terrified it'll vanish as swiftly as it arrived, though, so while I'm still at this querying juncture, wish me luck--the good kind, as always--and I will wish the same for you.

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