Here We Go

After some thumb-twiddling today, I (think I've) decided to dedicate this lovely space to talking about and thinking through my publishing journey with my first novel. I'll do my best to post updates as they occur, but also to post *something* at least once a week regardless. My first novel--*which is in fact, not my "first" novel at all--is a dark fairytale quest that's currently out on submission and, dear gods, this waiting is absolutely the worst part so far.

I've been publishing short fiction for years now, so I naively assumed I understood what the waiting game felt like. How adorable of me. Waiting to hear back from editors on the fate of my novel feels infinitely worse than waiting on editors for the fate of a single short story.

This isn't to say I love my short stories less than my novel--on the contrary, short fiction will always be my true love (don't tell the novel)--but simply that the sensation of this novel-waiting feels entirely different: more powerless, more tiring, more important, more, more, more.

A great deal of this "more," I'm sure, is due to the increased feeling of powerlessness that comes along with it. In short fiction, I do all my own submission work; I look for the calls, I research the magazines, I draft the cover letters, etc. I can decide on a whim to withdraw a story for no reason at all! I can skate under a deadline by submitting something seconds before the window closes!

The novel, however, is entirely in the hands of my agent. Now, granted, I both trust and admire my agent, and he's always very open with me re his opinions about where/when/why/who we submit to, but it is still simply not the same as taking full charge myself. My heart is on the battlefield, but my body is not. If I were being painfully dramatic, I might guess this is what people feel like when their lovers go off to war. But of course it isn't; my novel is nothing so precious as a human life. Publishing isn't a war. My person would likely be irked to learn I had another lover, off to battle or not.

And yet. Even so.

Here we go.




P.S. If you have any specific writer-life questions, drop them in the comments! I'll do my best.


*I've written, oh, at least four? novels so far. This is simply the first one that's ever felt Right and Good, instead of embarrassing. A secret: the first novel I remember writing was in high school and it was pretty much exactly a medieval retelling of The Bourne Identity lol.