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The Next Frontier: Getting Published

Someone’s scraping a shovel against the sidewalk outside, and I’m hugging Toby – much to his dismay.

Usually Andy’s the one coddling The Tobes, but this morning I require a little extra reassurance, and Toby’s blobby self is exactly what I need.

I’m re-reading my query letter for the 400th time, ensuring that the email formatting isn’t going to jack everything up, and double-checking that I did everything exactly the way I was instructed to by the publisher’s website. By the time I get to the last period, I’m exhausted.

My shaky lil finger hovers over the “Send” button for a few seconds.

“Here we go, Tobes!”

He shifts uncomfortably, and hops out of the chair to attack his eyeless Piglet doll.

I send the email, then check my Sent folder to make sure everything looks alright. I exhale, wander around the living room for a minute, and gather my thoughts. This is the first step of many, but getting here has been harder than I thought.

***

It’s hard to believe that over two and a half years ago, I was jabbering about writing a book. And then I worked and worked and worked, and it felt like the closer I got to the end, the longer the process was going to take. Especially when I realized I had to write a proposal on top of everything else.

But after some intense proposal writing and query letter development, I feel as though I’m pretty good to go. It took a while to figure out how best to structure my proposal – mostly because all of the available articles on the Internets tell you a hundred different ways to write one. But I distilled out what I felt worked best for me and infused the proposal with humor – because if nothing else, I want it to accurately reflect me and my personality.

In all honesty, I had no idea that a proposal was so involved – that it’d need its own table of contents. Between the marketing and promotion sections, the chapter-by-chapter summaries, and all of the other goodies, my proposal ended up being 30 pages. And sure, that’s probably way too long. But at least this way I can pull out parts that various agents/publishing houses may require – and I won’t have to reinvent the wheel every single time.

Late yesterday, I finished re-reading the full memoir – whilst spot-editing for little grammatical mistakes. I cut a few things here, added there. But then, around bedtime, I realized I was as done as I’ll be – and not just with one task, but with everything.

And now, I’m in that terrifying phase of shopping my memoir around to see if anyone wants to bite. In many ways, I’m back at the starting line.

But I’m ready to race.

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A [Wannabe] Writer’s Work is Never Done

After applying to another job, I decide to call it for the day. The worn leather sofa gives under my weight with a familiar umphah – an auditory reassurance that translates to “No, I’m not going to buckle beneath you. Even after those cupcakes.”

Toby whines to get on the sofa. His paw misdirects just so that he punches me in the nuts. I inhale sharply. Nonplussed, he stares expectantly, grunting a bit and trying to propel his stubby legs and body up onto the cushions. I acquiesce to cuteness overload and pull him up, excusing his gas as I do.

Our tower fan hums quietly, pulling in the chilled air and amplifying street noise filtering up through the open windows. Somewhere below us on 11th Avenue, a man uses a loudspeaker to rap about a cat, his score full of bellowed meows blended with a synthesized ice cream truck jingle. Toby pricks his ears at the loud meows, but seemingly remembers that he’s well enough away from the street to be comfortably unimpressed. A police siren pierces the jingle’s chorus, and the song is no more.

Unlike earlier in the week, the sky is an overcast grayish-white – giving the appearance that we’re floating in a cloud bank. Despite the lack of sun, it’s pleasantly soothing – preferred, in fact, to the hot days. The smell of steaming pretzel rolls from the restaurant downstairs fills the living room momentarily, and I salivate to such a degree that Pavlov himself would applaud. I think about the ramekins of cheese sauce that usually accompany the hearty, salty rolls and close my eyes. The granola bar I just ate doesn’t quite stack up.

A small pile of books sits on the kitchen table, and I’m nearly done with one of them. I bought them earlier this week for both pleasure and research. Because it seems that writing a memoir isn’t just that – there’re all sorts of comp background checks and other things to be done. Which is understandable, but somewhat deflating. Just when I think the hard part is over, it just means the real work begins. And that’s fine. I just have to keep going.

Ah, books.

Post-move writing is always a bit difficult. Moving is hard, regardless of whatever I tell myself and no matter how exciting the new place happens to be. In a way, writing now becomes more of a chore – because at least with moving prep, I had an excuse for being a bit lax with the whole process. And every now and then, we all need breaks – welcomed respites from the grind of trying to achieve a long-held goal. But now that the dust has literally settled, it’s time to get back to it.

Re-reading my “final” manuscript draft yet again is terribly anxiety-inducing. So many questions bubble to the surface:

What if it’s horrible?

Is it long enough?

What if I don’t believe in it anymore?

What if I have nothing to really say?

What if it’s just not funny or engaging?

I’ve answered all these before – whilst gutting former iterations of this manuscript and reassembling the salvageable chapters into my own version of Frankenstein’s monster.

This time, it has to live – breathe with what I’ve given it.

And I think it does. Sure, I’ll have to give it CPR once the lovely agent I’ve yet to convince to believe in me returns it with plenty of red marks and a few “Gurl, you crazeh! Work on this shit” comments in the margins. But for now, I’m trying to focus on the less fun parts of getting an agent to notice me – developing a query letter and proposal. These things aren’t nearly as fun, mostly because they require me to look back down my long road of writing and ask myself more hard questions:

Who will want to read this?

Why did I write it?

Why am I the best person to write about this stuff?

Will anyone buy this, and how is this going to be marketed?

All these and more. To reconsider them is incredibly daunting and frustrating to say the least. Because it’s hard to critically assess my manuscript as a commodity – as something to buy and sell, as something other than memories and lessons sandwiched between [nonexistent] covers. What’s more, I have to have confidence and sell myself and it. I have to toot my own horn without overdoing it, clearly understand my competition and where this manuscript fits in, and stand by it no matter what. It’s all easier said than done.

But tripping over the what-ifs and fretting about its appeal are exercises in madness. Because what writer or wannabe hasn’t had the exact same concerns? From what I’ve read, it seems that this is the stage where most people fall off the wagon and never get back on – their fears and apprehensions get the better of them, and they don’t pursue this dream; or they think they don’t need to put in the extra work, and let the subsequent criticism sideline them indefinitely. Or worse, they remain in the “Oh, it just needs a little more work” purgatory and never escape.

Writing, and aspiring to be a writer, are two very different things. But as long as I keep this passion going, keep stoking these fiery-hot embers, I’ll make it. I’ve got to.

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Booked

Isn’t it fascinating how we change?

With every degree until the full 180, we undergo infinitesimal augmentations before casting quizzical retrospective glances at that stranger of yore staring back through the mirror.

Alright, so that made me sound too much like Don Quixote.

Even if I’ve tilted with a few windmills.

***

Like a lot of kids, I had a penchant for spending chunks of time outside, and equally as many in front of the Nintendo—banging on its top when Duck Hunt froze mid-quack, or blowing on the game cartridge until, miraculously, the Blue Screen of Death disappeared.

Those activities were enough for me. Throw a pet dog and cantankerous parrot into the mix, and I was set. So I spent very little time poring over books, losing myself between the pages. I left that to my sister, whose love of books rivaled that of our parents. 

Soon enough, though, my friends got more involved with sports, shed their baby fat, and left me for a soccer ball or pigskin.  

Still, I tried. Coupled with an accident-prone nature, my soccer playing resulted in bloody noses, jacked glasses, and busted lips—all collateral damage from misguided kicks by my team’s largest member. It didn’t help that my Boost bar consumption added pudge to my baby fat instead of transforming me into a muscled, testosterone-fueled jock.

So, I self-relegated myself to the bench. Which would seem like the perfect segue to a bookworming future, right?

Meh, nope.

Not until Book It! sensationalized the appeal of reading (and Pizza Hut’s personal pan pizzas) did I entertain the thought of reading for pleasure.

Reading for fun? I can dig it.

Overcoming a general disinterest in reading, and a profound rebelliousness toward my parents’ slightly overbearing book-pushing, was a very gradual process. Because even if I toted a thick book around the house, my reading became a spectacle, accompanied with, “Oh, look. You’re reading!”

If that patronized praise had been accompanied with a biscuit, then maybe I’d have responded positively. But I wasn’t a dog, and I resented the slightly barbed undertones with every book-inspired insinuation.

So I started hiding the fact that I was reading.

Mostly because I felt profoundly stunted and ashamed.   

That is, until I was introduced to Brian Jacques and his Redwall series. Book after book, I lost hours winding through the vivid details about banquets and battles; it wasn’t until a decade later that I learned that he wrote for blind children.

*** 

Much later on, well into graduate school, I became enamored with memoirs.

Some of my favorites. And an awesome bowl.

Reading personal stories about how people figured out their lives, or at least tried to do something with them, struck some sort of chord. It made me think about all of the journals I’ve kept since I was nine—from my very first journal entry, which revolved around Zack from Saved by the Bell and a blue sequined suit (clues, clues everywhere!), to the family stories I’ve collected.

Something in my journals captures so much of who I am. And not just because they include crazed ramblings about my latest personal experiences.

The whole act of writing calms me—makes me feel like I’m doing something right. I just don’t get that from work, or anything else that I do.

That alone should tell me something.

***

Last weekend, while Andy and I perused one of my favorite local bookstores, we both remarked about how great it’d be to write a book.

I’ve mulled it over before—books and history and humor and life, and synthesizing them all. So I figure, what the hell?

I may as well try to do something that’ll make me feel like I’ve captured something about life, experiences others can relate to and laugh about.

Even if I once hated to read, maybe something I create can become some kid’s Redwall-like retreat.   

So, I’ll do it.

I’ll try my hand at writing a memoir.

And even if I don’t succeed—don’t ever take a dust jacket photo, don’t deliver a reading like some of my favorite authors—I’ll recount some pretty good memories.

And laugh hard along the way.