Sitting in a workshop with bestselling/award-winning author Margot Livesey. Maybe I ought to be Twittering this stuff.
Is this title redundant?
Anyway, I've had a serious nibble from a publisher on my book. I say serious because they mentioned "contract." But I say nibble because I've been asked to make some revisions prior to an offer being made.
I've been knocked around so much of late, I think I'll take a page out of Syd's book and just continue to do my best all over and expect nothing to come of this. Worst case scenario? I do the revisions to improve my work that I am doing anyways.
Remember those brick walls I talked about in my last post? I'm feeling like they are about 2 miles tall right now. I'm not even sure that I haven't been inadvertently laying a few of those bricks myself.
It has not been the most pleasant two weeks in my writing career. There have been some ups, but mostly I've been feeling pretty confused and inept. I've received a whole bunch of feedback on my manuscript, and the opinions have ranged from "I love this and I am dying to know more" to "your protagonist is completely unsympathetic and no reader is going to want to turn the page to find out about her. She is petty, mean and unrelentingly cynical (granted, this last was the only person who disliked my protagonist, but OhWow did she hate her!). People wanted more of certain information while others wanted less of the same information. Some people said add character layers while others said give it a stronger plot (make her an amateur sleuth and bungle around for humor!).
And just about everyone who is in the publishing business (meaning agents and editors) say that the addiction theme is completely played out and won't sell. So I would be best off to tone down that aspect of my book if I want it to be saleable.
The upside? Everyone seems to agree I can write pretty well. It's just that the book won't sell.
Arg.
Another upside? I managed to deal gracefully with the editor who despised my protagonist. I'm very proud of myself for not falling apart. I did feel like I'd been slapped, though. Particularly since much of the protagonist is based on me in early sobriety. (she only had the first three chapters and didn't see how the character evolved, but I don't think anyone -even my mother- would describe me as petty and unrelentingly cynical. Sardonic, yes. Mean? No.
In other news, I was recently diagnosed with uterine fibroids significant enough that the first gyn specialist I saw recommended a hysterectomy in lieu of removing the tumors. She claimed the largest one was too big (the size of a lemon) and lodged in the uterine wall, so that was really the only recourse, although if I wanted, I could have a procedure to cut the blood supply from the fibroids which would shrink them temporarily. But she said I'd likely get more fibroids and the others would probably resume growth, so a hysterectomy would be inevitable.
Now, mind you, I am still in my childbearing years. I haven't hit 40 yet. I don't think I want to have another kid, but the idea of a hysterectomy sounds appalling. I've done a bunch of research since last week, and lo-and-behold, very few fibroid sufferrers require a hysterectomy. In fact, they are by and large over prescribed. Furthermore, there are risks associated with hysterectomy, especially for a young woman, that this doctor failed to tell me - like potential sexual dysfunction, problems with internal organs shifting into the cavity and premature menopause.
Hullo! As if the idea of losing a very important part of my guts (my beautiful baby boy was created there!), but those other things are pretty horrible too. The biggest risk with not having the hysterectomy is that the fibroids may grow back and/or new ones will develop and I will need to have another procedure. There is also a risk of the surgery going wrong and an emergency hysterectomy needing to be performed.
Anyway, I suppose this is TMI for all of you, but I am a little freaked out over this whole thing. This surprise health issue on top of the bumpy writing experiences have me feeling -- I don't know.
Did I mention we have slugs in the garden? Damn slugs. I used to use beer traps to kill them. Not an option now. So far they're mostly eating the marigolds and chrysanthemums, which are flanking the vegetable beds to keep the other critters out. But they have munched down on the mustard greens I'm trying to grow. They're pissing me off.
During my International Womens Writing Guild conference, I took a course called "Mirrors and Mentors." One of the exercises the instructor asked us to do is to either list our mentors, or write some sort of brief piece about a mentor or what we had learned.
I came to the conclusion that I desperately want a mentor, but I am probably likely to shun anyone who tried to step into that role. I'd say my therapist is perhaps the closest thing I've allowed anyone to become to a mentor to me. But truthfully, it is not a mentor/student relationship. The only reason I credit it as at all pedagogal is that I have become more confident to express myself under his care.
My husband has been a terrific support to me, but I he certainly doesn't fill a mentor roll. I think I may be yearning for someone to champion my story for me -- or rather, champion me -- and the lukewarm reception is starting to wear on me. I think I'm wishing for this parental figure to take a shine to me, see this glimmer of promise and take me under their wing. It never happened to me as a child, and I think I am feeling the pain of it again right now. I don't expect it, but its absence is acute and underscored when I am seeking acceptance. Yet, I don't want to change to a story that is more saleable or mainstream, even though I think I could knock one out without much trouble.
I suppose I'm just saying that I'm feeling a little lonely in my pursuit. Not that anyone needs to step in and soothe me here. I'm not sure I could accept it if it were offered. It's amazing how prickly and needy one can be simultaneously.
What I ended up writing for that workshop exercise was about my desire to be adopted. In many ways, I've adopted myself. But sometimes, sometimes I want more.
I feel like Laura SanGiacomo's character Kit in the movie Pretty Woman, when Julia Robert's Vivian gives kit money to go to school because she thinks she has potential. Kit, who has wise-cracked and drugged her way through her small parts of the movie, gets very wide-eyed and quiet and says, "Really, you think I got potential?"
There's a starving little girl in me. Still.
Sitting in a workshop with bestselling/award-winning author Margot Livesey. Maybe I ought to be Twittering this stuff.
I'm going to paraphrase Randy Pausch, the late author of "The Last Lecture," who wrote that brick walls were not put in our way in order to stop us. They are put in our paths so that we can prove how badly we want something. The brick walls are to stop other people, those who don't want it as much as we do.
The recession has hit the publishing world much like it has hit everything else. Although people have not stopped reading, the ways they are reading has been affected. Smaller publishers have gone under, digital publishing is on the rise and long established authors are losing their publishing contracts. All-in-all, it is not the most favorable time to be getting into the book game as an unknown, particularly if I am writing a book that doesn't have HOME RUN written all over it.
In my last post, I didn't mean to make it seem like I was floundering around in what is wrong with my book. Not that there isn't plenty of room for improvement (there's always places to do better, and I hope to never stop learning), but by and large, I think the issue is timing and the fact that I am not trying to sell an obvious bestseller. In answer to some of the comments about showing the manuscript to published authors, etc., have done and also have more lined up to take a gander.
What strikes me as interesting about the rejections is that one person said to me that I should change the focus from a growth and redemption story to more of a mystery (er, no), another said alcoholism wasn't going to sell in today's market (um, to who? the actively alcoholic publishers who aren't keen on abstaining in an economic downturn?). Another said that this sort of story was absolutely saleable in this sort of market, she just didn't connect to the actual execution of my novel the way she thought she should (no snappy comeback... just *ouch*).
In other words, opinions are like....
Personally, I think this story, which is fiction rather than memoir, has a bigger market than most of the publishing world realizes. How compelling I've made the story is another question, but I think I've done a decent job. But I also believe that until I became part of the recovery community, I had no concept of how immense it is or how hungry I was for more information and relatable characters until I was there. Unless I am tapping into the right people, these agents I have been contacting might not understand that there are many of us out there looking for this sort of story.
Of course, I could be wrong.
To quote from literary agent Barbara Poelle's blog post on the state of the industry (and I have not queried her, in case you're wondering, and therefore is not guilty of any of the beforementioned rejections):
"No, really. Why am I eating my feelings and crying? Well, because last week, a colleague of mine was going out with a brilliant manuscript and was told by an editor, 'The writing is amazing, but amazing writing isn’t enough.'
AMAZING. WRITING. ISN’T. ENOUGH."
My mission is to figure out what sort of pretzel I need to twist myself into to make this process work for me. But one solution is not making this first novel into a friggin mystery. The fact is, this book is the only full-out recovery story I am likely to write. My other books have been suspense novels, and while I'm sure recovery will make cameos in one way or another in my books, this current manuscript is the book of my heart. I have other stories in me. If great writing isn't all that it takes to succeed, I damn well will figure out what else I need to do.
What it all comes down to is timing and whether I am ready to persist. That brick wall is not for me.
I received a rejection letter from a pretty big deal agent today, someone I met at the conference I went to in April. She reps some major authors who I admire and we hit it off well. She requested the first 50 pages of my manuscript. Since I sent it to her, I have done some fairly major reworks of these pages, but even so, the older story version she received is substantially the same as my current improved one.
At any rate, she wrote me the nicest rejection letter I have received thus far. She said she found my characters highly sympathetic, my writing voice "distinct" and "accomplished" and the story strong. She simply didn't feel as connected to it as she felt she needed to in order to represent me.
So, I'm bummed, but I also don't feel like I am on the wrong track. I am, however, wondering about this general problem agents are having with connecting to the story. I think it may be in part because my dear protagonist is an alcoholic in recovery? I wonder if that is a difficult sell for someone who is not in recovery or doesn't have someone close to them in recovery. At least when it is not a sensationalistic story. Any thoughts?
What do you think of the hands I made in my doll making class today? You should see the head. Really creepy. It's supposed to be good for healing. Hmmm. Maybe when it is put together with hair. Right now I'm kind of scared of it.
As of yesterday, I've been in yet another writing conference. This one is the International Women's Writing Conference. It's amazing to me how different the tenor is of all these shindigs. This one is much more creatively focused rather than business. It's cool so far, but I'm exhausted. I'm a commuter for this one, so I'm going home at night and trying to do my regular life stuff too. A little insane.
A tomato red Smart Car with a bumper advertising Grim Reaper Car Racing.
It totally flew by me. In my defense, it was the stretch of highway I got my speeding ticket on back in February.
Here's me just moments ago dropping off partial manuscript submissions at the post office. I received a "your work is promising, but I'm not enthusiastic enough about it to champion it into the publishing process" letter yesterday. I can't decide if my childhood prepared me for these kinds of kicks or if sobriety has made me stronger. I suspect a combination of both because I'm nowhere near ready to give up.
More the fool me. Hey, it's oodles better than pouring poison down my throat.