Remember the Rhino
Remember the Rhinoceros!
an author’s journey through publishing, Part IV
by Sandi Layne
As I’m typing this, I have on my desktop the manuscript for another novel. It has been written and presented to a round-table of literary professionals who red-inked and critiqued it to my face. They did not handle me with kid gloves, this group. We had a good history of mutual critiquing experiences and shared successes and failures. We even put out our own anthology!
The novel I am polishing for publication next year was, I think, the eighteenth I had completed. Before even one of my novels had actually managed to see print, I had racked up a nice, tidy file folder with rejection notes and letters. For a multiplicity of novels! Because even though my first novel was critically shredded by a professional (the subject of another story for another day) and my second was sent back in less than forty-eight hours, I still had to write at that point. It was what I had to do.
And if my first efforts were not publishable, I felt I had to keep working at it. I didn’t feel the need to keep kicking the original story into shape – I doubt that would have helped anyway, in hindsight. Instead, I practiced and grew more proficient in the art of storytelling. I observed my surroundings, took copious notes, inhaling details and minutiae and exhaling them into journals. I studied people, interviewed them, wrote them into stories.
I wrote and wrote and wrote. And polished and had beta-readers critique and I rewrote and submitted and got more rejection notices…
May I tell you something? It wasn’t easy.
I had days when I was convinced I was a lousy writer. I had times where it felt like no one – and I mean no one – supported me. It was just me, hanging myself out there time and again, waiting for another kick in the jaw. Writing for public consumption can be a masochistic way of life.
This is why I had to develop that thick skin I now possess. I hear from writers that say they’re writing their first novel but won’t “let anyone read it until it’s published” because they don’t want to share. They’re insecure. I understand that.
But as I’m sure you have realized by now, that secrecy idea of theirs is completely absurd.
I have heard from writers who have The Big Story in their head. They do all the right things, they research and write and polish and submit and are rejected soundly. Understandably, they feel terrible. And they decide…to stop. To quit. They adopt the assumption that they will never be published so they should just stop. Or that that one story was the only one they had in them. Or they find this is just too hard, this getting published business.
If it’s too hard, you shouldn’t do it.
But if writing is what you want to do – if it is what you have to do to find contentment in your life – then suck it up, Buttercup. Take it on the jaw, sit down at your keyboard and try again. Writing may sound like a soft sort of enterprise, but it is one of the hardest things anyone can do and do well. Living as a working writer requires you to have self-confidence, confidence in your words, confidence in your presentation, and intestinal fortitude to persevere against family pressures and friendly cautions. It requires enormous amounts of self-discipline and a font of intrinsic motivation.
And it requires a jaw of granite, a stiff upper lip and that darned rhinoceros hide.
Do you have what it takes? Are you willing to develop these qualities in yourself, through trial and error and cringing and rejection? Are you willing to believe in yourself?
The Payoff
One of the coolest things I remember – aside from having a publisher ship a copy of my novel to me – was seeing that same novel on a discount table years later. A bookstore was clearing out inventory and there was my book, with a big red sticker on it. “I’ve been discounted!” I almost shrieked. In truth, I did say it aloud. People looked at me. My picture was on the book’s back cover so I could laugh and say, “I’m on sale!”
They smiled, nodded and shook their heads in silent bewilderment as I proudly bought a sale copy of my own work. Yes, yes I did.
It. Felt. Amazing.
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The owners of My Vamp Fiction have kindly asked me to be on staff, and I will be doing a monthly column/blog about writing and living life as a writer, not just someone who does this as a hobby. So keep an eye open for Quill’s Corner. And thank you for reading. ~ Sandi
Hey, duskwatcher! :)
That font of intrinsic motivation I mentioned up there? That’s what you come to rely upon. Seriously.
Now, if you are incredibly fortunate, you might find (or START) a writers’ roundtable in your area. I can direct you (not kidding) to a piece on how you might wish to start one, available as part of an anthology MY old group published. The key to a group like this is to set solid rules of participation and stick to them.
But, as I said, you have to have the motivation to keep going within yourself — encouragement from others is helpful, but it isn’t truly necessary. If you can’t find (or face) a RL group, develop one online, again with solid rules of participation.
Most novelists throughout the years wrote brilliant stuff without roundtables. It can be done. We are often wired to want the interaction and it IS addicting.
A roundtable is very very different from read-and-review, and you might find that that kind of interaction might be just as discouraging to you as anything. I know many wonderful writers who couldn’t face the regular barrage of red ink. It’s just the way it was. I never thought less of them! Some remain very dear friends. They just found that writing was not a WAY OF LIFE for them. Which is totally okay.
I will be addressing the creation and development of different works once I get rolling, here. :) Maybe you could drop me an email or whatever if you have specific topics I can address for you?
~Sandi
One of the great things about fanfiction is of course, the immediate feedback. I’m convinced if it wasn;t for the reviews I might have given up. So when I think about trying to tackle an ofic, the things that gives me pause is where to go for critique (and encourgaement). How did you find the circle of people that you work with on your ofic?
Lisa,
Thank you! I’m so pleased if I can make even one person keep at it because they’re not alone. I was SO LONELY with this when I started.
You might not be a whiz-bang storyteller with that first novel…but you WILL BE one. You just have to work at it. And work at it some more. Practice really does make a huge difference. :-)
Please keep at it. :) Share those great stories! You never know when your words will reach someone.
~Sandi Layne aka LJ Summers — depending upon where you find me ;-)
As always, Sandi, I find your articles to be informative and inspiring. I am one of those people that feels the need to write and wants to be published; hell, I’m even convinced I have at least one great story in me along with a multitude of others that may or not be great. What has held me back or keeps me from facing the keyboard on some days is the fear that I really don’t have that great story in me. Everyone has great stories, but not everyone is a great storyteller – and it’s that uncertainty in myself that’s my stumbling block more than anything else. I realize of course that I need to just suck it up, Buttercup, and yet I’m still working on that part.
Your words – the truth that it isn’t easy, it’s often lonely, and sometimes you’ll hear no a lot more than you’ll hear yes – actually make me feel more comfortable in my own writing skin. Because you see, I’m not alone with these feelings. I’m not out there hanging by myself even if I feel like I am. This is a process, like anything else in life, and it takes time to get through each step. Take it a day at a time. Take it a word, a sentence, a paragraph, and a page at a time. The most important thing I’ve learned from your articles is to never give up.
Thanks,
~Lisa