Pity Party

Writing sucks and it’s hard. If you have a good idea, it’s really hard to turn it into a proof statement. Then it’s really hard to turn that proof statement into a fluid plot and an interesting story. Then it’s really hard to snowflake that story into the places, characters, and scenes that will make the book a book. But if you manage to do that, it’s really hard to pick the right words, to show the story instead of tell it, to set the right tone, to keep the right rhythm, to vary the sentence structure and not use words like “vomit” fifty times.

But even if you do manage to work through all that and write a good novel, it’s really hard to write a good query letter. But if you write a good query letter, it’s really hard to write a synopsis. Like pulling out toenails or chewing on foil hard. But if you manage to do all of these things, its really hard to wait the months and months after you’ve sent your query package to agents, many of whom won’t give you the courtesy of a response, and the rest of them who will just say no. And it’s really hard to wait 4 years for this process to finally come to fruition. But if do you manage to get an agent, it’s hard to listen to his or her criticism, stay up late making the changes, and then worry about whether they are good enough, whether you are good enough, and whether what you wrote is actually a book rather than thousands of words strung together for your own self-indulgent edification.

And then, when the agent loves your changes and agrees to market your book to major publishers, you think you’ve finally cleared the hurdles and that’s anything but hard. That’s wonderful. But then you wait and wait and wait and that waiting is the hardest part yet, because you’re finally so close to your goal. And then it gets harder when that first publisher rejects the manuscript for reasons unrelated to the quality of the writing. And then it’s a little less hard when additional publishers reject the novel for the same reasons. But then you do something silly like read the blog of a woman who writes mommy lit books about Bunco groups and has published not one, but two of these books and that’s hard. It’s so hard you do something base and unfair and lashy-y out-y like make a caustic comment about this author’s hair-do.

Then you try to let go of the hope that your mommy lit, chick lit, upscale commercial women’s fiction, whatever those ne’er-do-wells in the publishing world want to call it book will be published and you start the second book. And that’s hard. It’s all hard. And it sucks. And I won’t even qualify with a bunch of comments about how wonderfully fortunate I am and that I have my health, a wonderful family, a house, a dog, a very cool washer and dryer, and an express chill function in my fridge that chills my wine in 5 minutes. It’s my pity party and I don’t have to. Writing sucks and I hate it so much I can’t stop.