Getting a book published after 13 years of trying and failing to do so should be that “Rocky dancing with arms raised in victory at the top of the steps” moment in every writer’s life right? Well, hold on there sunshine because reality is about to swing its concrete shin MMA style right into your jubilant metaphorical nut sack.
I got serious about writing fiction in 1997. In 1999 I started writing my first novel and completed the first draft two years later. Another year and a half of re-writes and I shakily e-mailed off my first round of query letters to literary agents. Two more years of polite “Thank you, but no thanks” style rejection letters and I mothballed my sad little novel.
I kept writing short stories though and would occasionally publish a few in small and mid-level literary journals. Then in 2009 after unknowingly joining a cult based on some very dodgy gurus an idea for a novella popped into my head. Imagine “Illusions” by Richard Bach meets “A River Runs Through It” by Norman Mclean meets “Affliction” by Russell Banks and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the major themes that were spinning around my brain at the time.
But I put it off and didn’t start writing it until 2012. It was the story that just wouldn’t go away, so I finally sat down and wrote it. A year later I had a 30k word novella. I anguished a bit about whether or not to try and make it 20–25k words longer since I knew most literary agents wouldn’t want to have anything to do with a novella written by an unknown like myself. I did some research though and found a handful of small publishers that accepted unsolicited submissions for novellas. After a year of major edits I started sending it out. Another year of rejections followed and then in mid-2015 it happened. There was a massive tremor in the Force and for a brief moment the gate keepers stepped aside and my little novella was ushered into publishing Valhalla (or so I thought).
Any writer will tell you that receiving your first acceptance letter or e-mail is one of the greatest and most memorial moments of your entire writing career. And though it wasn’t my first acceptance letter it was by far the greatest moment in my writing “career”, and still is actually, though a very tarnished one.
I knew enough to know that this didn’t mean I was going to be the next John Steinbeck. Usually it takes three or four novels before I writer gets noticed if they ever do. But the fact that my novella was going to be published was a huge boost for me. Over the next year and a half I wrote a 77k word novel and a 25k word fictionalized memoir. It was one of the rare times for me that the writing just flowed out. Wondering whether or not all the time and effort I put into my writing is worth it has always been a big motivation killer for me, so getting published was a massive boost during that time.
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