After the Fall

I recently lost 30K of a novel in progress and had to start again. What’s the biggest setback you’ve had in your writing and did you overcome it?

 

Just reading the first line of this question gives me the shivers. I would say that is my worst nightmare, except rats still roaming the earth freely, this would be a very close second. What to do after a situation like this? Well, after the crying and puking and cursing the universe, there’s nothing to it, but to do it, right?

 

So, while I have not experienced the horror of this particular moment, I, like every writer, have had many setbacks. But the answer is always the same. Pick yourself up off the floor, wipe away the tears, pour a glass/mug of your favorite comfort drink, and begin again.

Sometimes that’s with writing, beginning again from page one, word one. But for aspiring or new writers it’s the querying that can be the biggest setback. It’s impossible to overstate the devastating toll the constant rejection of finding an open door into traditional publishing takes. This was, for me, the biggest setback.

 

For a time, I continued to fling myself against those closed gates trying to get that one yes until my soul couldn’t take it anymore. It’s not the answer for everyone, but I chose to end the torture and self-published my first three books. It was an unexpected answer to a problem that almost stole my joy in writing. And for me it was the right answer.

 

It wasn’t the only answer, though. Leaning on my writing community, especially my writing group to remind me that my stories need to be told, helped. But that one thing that everyone who decides to chase, what can feel is an impossible dream, needs is the inability to quit. That perseverance is what makes it possible to withstand submitting the same manuscript dozens of times to dozens of different agencies. Or getting that thanks but no thanks from your favorite agent after getting a request for the full manuscript.

 

Whatever setback rears its ugly head, we writers really only have one of three choices. Begin again, make our own lane, or quit. I don’t know a lot of quitters, do you?