Nov 9 – Month of Gratitude This one, my writer friends might appreciate. I’m grateful for the failures. I failed so badly at math, in fourth grade, my teacher put me in the corner of the room so I would ‘focus’. That didn’t work. I couldn’t remember multiplication tables or read analog clocks or even calculate accurate change. Most of it stayed a bit mysterious until it finally clicked in my late twenties. It was because of those failures that I was ‘forced’ to do what I loved instead…a career path in English. My major in college was English, my minor was Journalism. Unfortunately, the job market was almost non-existent for a newbie the year I graduated college. I failed to land a job in my field for two grueling years. When I finally did, it was a tech writing position, with zero creativity involved. I failed to become the writer I’d hoped to be, but the pay was great. Life went along. I eventually left my tech writing job to become a mama. I put aside the creative writing completely and focused on my growing family. I became a daycare provider instead. Being with my kids, at least I didn’t feel like I’d failed so majorly. But, in 2008, I was given a second-hand laptop for Christmas and a novel that swung the doors open on my creativity again. It reminded me again that I had failed to become what I was always going to be: a writer. The last week of April 2009, I queried my first novel and that first-and-only query went to a major house. Within an hour, I got a full request. Second week of May 2009, I got my first rejection from that same house. I failed to land the agent. Between May 2009 and August of 2010, I wrote four more books. One was such suck that it failed to ever make it out of my computer. The other three books, I queried. Despite loads of interest for my second and third books, I failed time and again to reach the final brass ring and procure an agent. Then, I queried the fourth book. It brought me one of the major thrills of my writing career. A full request from Jodi Reamer. We did some revisions together. I was ecstatic to be working with the agent who represented the author whose book had inspired my creativity again, after all those years of dry-toast writing. It was wildly exciting to me—I felt like I was in the best hands I could be in. But, in the end, I failed again to get the agent. My hope suffered a major crack. That moment triggered a cascade of failures that devastated me. I became gun shy of agents. In September of 2011, I became utterly exhausted and was losing the joy of writing. I’d failed to become a Traditional author and becoming an Independent author had a terrible stigma attached. I made a desperate decision to be read and began releasing my book, Cornerstone, one chapter at a time on my blog, for free. The outpouring of readers was intense. The chasm in my hope began to heal as I was finally able to witness people enjoying my work. However, I still failed to be a ‘professional’, since I was not being paid for my work. But the Indie community collected around me like a herd protecting their young. They flooded me with advice and insisted I be paid for my work. I published Cornerstone in November 2011 and became one of those stigmatized Indies. One of the best things I’ve ever done. At this writing, I’ve yet failed to become a Traditional author. And at this point in my career, I am not unhappy with that failure. By failing in the Traditional path, I have learned so much more of my trade than I ever would have, if I’d had teams working on my behalf. I’ve learned how to design covers and how to format. I’ve got creative control over my work. I’m a workaholic, but I don’t have the stress of competing against anyone but myself. And I continue to fail. Gloriously. I release covers impulsively because I have people who want to see them; I market ineffectively because I can’t wait to get back to my new manuscript; I don’t always get to meet every single person at every single conference and have the kind of deep conversation I would like to have with them. Writing as fast as I can, I still fail to put out the number of stories that I have nagging at me in my head. I recognize the true value of my failures now. They make me so immensely grateful for every success I achieve. I am a writer. SUCCESS.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 13:14:34 +0000
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