Years ago, my sister read one of my early essays. She had an odd look in her eye when she’d finished it. “Don’t you feel self-conscious about exposing your soul like this?”
I especially remember her words when a novel is as ready as it ever will be, and the time for sending it to agents can no longer be avoided. This I did in the past week. I find it to be the most depressing part of authoring.
Agents frequently receive as many as a hundred to two hundred queries per week. Out of these, they often only take on ten or less new clients per year. What are the chances of success then? I’m terrible at maths, but I don’t think I’m far wrong when I calculate it’s less than 1%.
It’s true that I’m biased, but I do believe writing is one of the most difficult occupations there are. I often work eight to ten hours a day, six days a week, seven if I get half a chance. I work even when I’m not working, as there are seldom times when I’m not mulling over stories, characters and plot knots. True, there are more difficult jobs, which require greater dedication, longer hours, more commitment. Yet few other occupations ask so much and offer so little.
Truly, a prerequisite for taking on this lover called Writing is madness. He quenches thirst like no other, but leaves you parched and aching when you stop drinking.
Anyone who writes claiming they never hope to have others read their tales, is either lying or really weird. I couldn’t imagine writing with the idea of keeping my stories locked away in a folder on my computer’s hard drive, never to be read. “I want people to read this” is the force that drives me to strive for excellence. I yearn to tell my stories in such a way that people will be lost in them. I want to create characters they can fall in love with. I long for readers to come away from my tales with ideas communicated from my heart to theirs which neither writer nor reader can define. What is the point otherwise?
Writing is torture. Not writing would be worse.
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So true! I question my sanity at least once a week.
Recently I read some statistics that encouraged me though. The article stated that when you take into account the big publishers, small houses and e–publishers, there will be almost 70,000 books published in the coming year. Of course all of these deals won’t offer big advances. Some won’t offer any advances at all, but the possibilities of getting legitimately published aren’t a dire as some people make them look.
I’m hanging on to these numbers, because I plan to be in that 70,000!
I agree with you completely. Writing is my life. It’s the one thing I know I know how to do.
Don’t you ever give up!
Theresa
The hardest part for me is the wait after submitting! I’ve also read that advances are down but if sales are good, then you start receiving your royalties faster. Hang in there!!