I've been sitting on completed manuscripts for too long now, and they're starting to burn in me a little. I feel like I need to step up my agent query list, but every time I send out and get rejected, I feel burned and disheartened. It's been a long while since I tried to query (months at the minimum) and I need to put my work out more fully. Every time I'm rejected, though, I figure that it's because I haven't put enough polish/work on my book.
That is true, though that may not be the reason I didn't hook an agent before. No, I think that there are a lot of factors that are connected to my failure to get anything accomplished on the publishing front and I can't control most of them. Those that I can, however, mostly involve the amount of work I can do in my revisions.
But I keep landing on my perennial problem: I don't like doing revisions. I don't like revisiting stories I've told, I'm tired of the characters, plot, and words. I wish it to be out of my hands and be done. The longer I look at my own work, the more disheartened and discouraged I feel. It's hard to be enthusiastic in the face of those emotions. Despite the honest opprobrium of my friends and family who have read my stuff, I lack a lot the confidence in my writings to want to pursue so much work.
This is one of the conundrums of the creative life: In order to improve, you need to spend time being horrible at it, struggling to refine your craft. But in order to make a living off the creativity, you have to create a project worthy of payment. Until you've refined the craft, you can't really charge for it. So there's a perpetual loop.
I guess I'm saying that I'm getting tired of the game, and I haven't been playing it for very long. Really, when I drill down into my feelings about what's going on, I realize that it isn't the way agents/publishing houses work that gets me down: It's the recognition that I'm constantly facing my own insecurities, especially about writing.
See, there are two voices at my elbow whenever I write. One is the unchallenged, naive belief in what my creative writing teachers told me--and peer edits and friends and whoever--that whatever it was I wrote, it was "good writing". The other voice is the one that insists that, regardless of how much effort I put into it, I'm not likely to succeed, so why bother?
To the second voice, I have to grit my teeth and write on. Submit on. Continue on. Keep calm and carry on.
To the first voice, though, that one is harder. It comes from a lot of different things: Being raised by an immensely talented but humble father and seeing him deflect and demure compliments for fear of them going to his head; a religious forewarning against pride making me leery of sentiments that might build me up unworthily or inappropriately, a tendency that's so deeply ingrained in me that even recognizing it isn't going to take it away from me; and a past built upon the gentle well-intentions of teachers, friends, and family whose method of encouraging was to use few qualifiers to their praise.
I don't get it much in my writing, but there's a fair amount of appreciation and, as it were, adulation in teaching. (Usually that comes long after the student has left my class, when they finally get what I was trying to tell them back in tenth grade.) I genuinely don't know what to say when kids say that they loved/miss my class and that I'm their favorite teacher. Of course I'm flattered--no one dislikes hearing that they're appreciated--but I don't know what to do in response to that. More often than not, I'm simply baffled. I talk a lot (read: Way too much), I cover some pretty boring/depressing things, and the humanities is one of the areas of least economic* value within the education paradigm. How can my class have mattered so much? The same thinking applies to my writing, and I'm always leery of how well received something is as a result. I often doubt the idea that I "write well", and I worry that it's simply a comparative thing: I appear good because too many others suck at it. That is hardly a way to live life, simply as a touchstone for others.
Yet isn't that the point of spiritual gifts? You get a particular way of perceiving spiritual truths and then you utilize that ability to help others, too? I can't seem to square the circle of what to do with regard to my soul when it comes to acknowledging my abilities--and I worry that my gift is much more paltry than I think, even if it's more potent than I know.
See, I did really well in school. All throughout the entire process. I ended up in the vice-principal's office exactly once, and I was so ashamed and embarrassed about it that I never ended up in there again. In middle school, I got a 4.0 as an eighth grader without knowing what a GPA was. The only girl I ever loved waited for me while I was gone on my mission, a woman to whom I'm happily married. I got into the teaching program without any setbacks. I worked some lousy jobs, and there was a time when I was really frustrated about what I would do with my career, but those were bumps on an otherwise fairly smooth road. The largest surprises of my life were my wife's first miscarriage, and then the next pregnancy having a heart baby in her womb.
In other words, I don't know if I ever met with genuine difficulty and trial until I was 24 years old. That's no one's fault...not even mine.
Since so much of my life has gone so well and so easily (I'm the definition of running life on "easy mode", depression notwithstanding), it is very difficult for me to find the will to push onward. I've so rarely had to flex that muscle, there's almost nothing there to exercise.
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* Not that economics is the only way to judge value. I don't believe that for any measurable amount of time. But it's the idea that's most prevalent when it comes to art in general, even if it's verbal/written art instead of visual or performance or aural art.
That is true, though that may not be the reason I didn't hook an agent before. No, I think that there are a lot of factors that are connected to my failure to get anything accomplished on the publishing front and I can't control most of them. Those that I can, however, mostly involve the amount of work I can do in my revisions.
But I keep landing on my perennial problem: I don't like doing revisions. I don't like revisiting stories I've told, I'm tired of the characters, plot, and words. I wish it to be out of my hands and be done. The longer I look at my own work, the more disheartened and discouraged I feel. It's hard to be enthusiastic in the face of those emotions. Despite the honest opprobrium of my friends and family who have read my stuff, I lack a lot the confidence in my writings to want to pursue so much work.
This is one of the conundrums of the creative life: In order to improve, you need to spend time being horrible at it, struggling to refine your craft. But in order to make a living off the creativity, you have to create a project worthy of payment. Until you've refined the craft, you can't really charge for it. So there's a perpetual loop.
I guess I'm saying that I'm getting tired of the game, and I haven't been playing it for very long. Really, when I drill down into my feelings about what's going on, I realize that it isn't the way agents/publishing houses work that gets me down: It's the recognition that I'm constantly facing my own insecurities, especially about writing.
See, there are two voices at my elbow whenever I write. One is the unchallenged, naive belief in what my creative writing teachers told me--and peer edits and friends and whoever--that whatever it was I wrote, it was "good writing". The other voice is the one that insists that, regardless of how much effort I put into it, I'm not likely to succeed, so why bother?
To the second voice, I have to grit my teeth and write on. Submit on. Continue on. Keep calm and carry on.
To the first voice, though, that one is harder. It comes from a lot of different things: Being raised by an immensely talented but humble father and seeing him deflect and demure compliments for fear of them going to his head; a religious forewarning against pride making me leery of sentiments that might build me up unworthily or inappropriately, a tendency that's so deeply ingrained in me that even recognizing it isn't going to take it away from me; and a past built upon the gentle well-intentions of teachers, friends, and family whose method of encouraging was to use few qualifiers to their praise.
First
There's no fault that I lay on my dad for his behavior. His levelheadedness is one of the keys to his success, as well as his work ethic. As a professional musician, he has had his share of minor successes, including some work that has made him a minor celebrity in the area. But he doesn't let the praise of his fans really affect him, and trying to emulate that attitude in him has been difficult for me.I don't get it much in my writing, but there's a fair amount of appreciation and, as it were, adulation in teaching. (Usually that comes long after the student has left my class, when they finally get what I was trying to tell them back in tenth grade.) I genuinely don't know what to say when kids say that they loved/miss my class and that I'm their favorite teacher. Of course I'm flattered--no one dislikes hearing that they're appreciated--but I don't know what to do in response to that. More often than not, I'm simply baffled. I talk a lot (read: Way too much), I cover some pretty boring/depressing things, and the humanities is one of the areas of least economic* value within the education paradigm. How can my class have mattered so much? The same thinking applies to my writing, and I'm always leery of how well received something is as a result. I often doubt the idea that I "write well", and I worry that it's simply a comparative thing: I appear good because too many others suck at it. That is hardly a way to live life, simply as a touchstone for others.
Second
The second problem is harder to unpack, in part because religion runs deep. What does it mean for me if a very positive sentiment (humility) has poisoned a way for me to honestly and truly understand myself? What does it mean about the institution that gave that idea to me? I firmly believe that pride is an obdurate and horrible thing, yet I can feel it lurking inside my chest, craving confirmation and pushing me away from the soft yielding of humility. In Mormonism (as in Milton), pride is one of the great sins, the one laid at Lucifer's feet as explanation for the fall of that arch-angel. Yet I feel stirrings of pride when I sit through another poorly led Sunday school lesson (apologies to any who do their best to teach during the second- and third hour meetings) and think about how the subject could easily be more stirring, more thought provoking, more spiritual. As if I were a better conduit for spiritual understanding than someone else because I have spent a decade teaching and studied the craft in college.Yet isn't that the point of spiritual gifts? You get a particular way of perceiving spiritual truths and then you utilize that ability to help others, too? I can't seem to square the circle of what to do with regard to my soul when it comes to acknowledging my abilities--and I worry that my gift is much more paltry than I think, even if it's more potent than I know.
Third
I worry, of course, that this confession will make those who've supported me and my writing habit throughout my life will feel as though they've made a mistake in the way they helped me. That isn't the case. Everyone has to learn how to deal with rejection and failure, and I don't know if there's a perfect time to learn that lesson. When you're young? Teenager? Young adult? Adult? I definitely got rejected, so I'm learning about that lesson. But so much of my youth simply fell in place that there isn't any way to point to an experience and say, "If only someone had given me that lesson of failure then, I wouldn't be this way!"See, I did really well in school. All throughout the entire process. I ended up in the vice-principal's office exactly once, and I was so ashamed and embarrassed about it that I never ended up in there again. In middle school, I got a 4.0 as an eighth grader without knowing what a GPA was. The only girl I ever loved waited for me while I was gone on my mission, a woman to whom I'm happily married. I got into the teaching program without any setbacks. I worked some lousy jobs, and there was a time when I was really frustrated about what I would do with my career, but those were bumps on an otherwise fairly smooth road. The largest surprises of my life were my wife's first miscarriage, and then the next pregnancy having a heart baby in her womb.
In other words, I don't know if I ever met with genuine difficulty and trial until I was 24 years old. That's no one's fault...not even mine.
Since so much of my life has gone so well and so easily (I'm the definition of running life on "easy mode", depression notwithstanding), it is very difficult for me to find the will to push onward. I've so rarely had to flex that muscle, there's almost nothing there to exercise.
Agents, Then?
I still have a goal to get an agent. It's not a timed goal--I can't really expect success off of what others' choices are--but I think I have to set up some more of things that I can control. My first step is to run through another edit of Conduits (as well as think up a better title for it) and refine my query again. I then need to cull my agent list, create a system of moving on when I'm rejected, and keeping up my effort. I'm hopeful that I can use some of Spring Break to implement these goals.
I guess we'll see how that goes.
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* Not that economics is the only way to judge value. I don't believe that for any measurable amount of time. But it's the idea that's most prevalent when it comes to art in general, even if it's verbal/written art instead of visual or performance or aural art.