It figures I’d get the Friday the thirteenth post. It’s just my luck.
Right after I sold my first two novels I found and joined a local writer’s critique group. I did this because I’d never actually met any writers in person, I thought I could use some other opinions on my work, and the notice at the library said the group was open to any sort of writer.
The group was a nice bunch of middle-aged people, but during the first meeting I discovered they all wrote literary fiction. Still, I presented my contribution to the meeting, an alien birth scene that I was asked to read out loud (they required you to read whatever you brought to be critiqued.) I thought it was okay because it was an open group.
I noticed after my reading that the open group looked a little like a herd of deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming high speed passenger train. I thought some humor might lighten up things, so I told a funny story about one jackass of a doctor I’d worked with in the past, and how he had inspired one of the loathesome characters in my book. The meeting ended shortly after that.
The lady who ran the crit group called me the next day to tell me not to attend another meeting because I’d been voted out of the group. When I asked why, she said, “Well, dear, we really don’t know how to critique your sort of writing. Also, that man who was sitting next to you last night is a doctor.”
Oops.
At my first national writers conference, I received an invite to one of those exclusive highbrow publisher parties attended by the serious movers and shakers in the biz. I was extremely nervous, so I asked one of the authors who had come from my city what I was supposed to do (she had not been invited, but she had five books in print, so I figured she knew.) She told me to hand out bookmarks to everyone at the party and tell them all about my book, because that’s what all the new authors were supposed to do.
Yes. I believed her.
At the party I only handed out about ten bookmarks before I realized no one else was doing this and stopped, but the damage was done. I’d bookmarked at least three senior editors from major houses, and a superstar bestselling author whom I’d looked up to since the seventh grade.
Shortly after that disaster, a friend offered to send my latest manuscript to a friend of theirs who just happened to be at the time one of the hottest bestsellers in the biz. The friend couldn’t promise anything, but she was pretty sure the Hot One would like my work and I’d get a nice cover quote out of it.
I was so excited when I called my editor to ask if it was okay to send the manuscript. The editor told me – and this is verbatim – that I couldn’t get a quote from the Hot One because we didn’t write in the same genre. And what cover quote did I get on that particular novel? Why, one from an Amazon.com reviewer.
Those are just three instances of bad luck that I’ve had in the biz. There are many more stories I could tell you. I was such a trusting soul, and I really didn’t know anything about publishing when I signed my first contract. I always put authors and editors and publishers on pedestals, too. They were my heroes through all the lonely years I spent pursuing publication. I was so excited about meeting and working with these people. Publishing was my dream, so of course all the people involved in the business would be as wonderful as all of the books I’d treasured.
I was forgiving, too, so it took a couple more years for me to recognize that my dream had become a nightmare.
Whether I was criminally stupid or just a magnet for bad luck, I had a very rough time of it. I didn’t give up right away, either. I tried other crit groups, but I never fit in with any of them, and since the first I’ve been kicked out of three more. I did the conference thing for a couple of years, but all I got out of it was a front row seat to pettiness and pointless behavior, two knee injuries – one that put me in the hospital – several upper respiratory infections, and one really horrible dose of food poisoning. I’ve not had any luck with finding that amazing editor every writer dreams of, but most of my editors got stuck with me because of some imprint change or hiring/firing situation, so I really can’t blame them for not living up to my expectations. I probably haven’t lived up to theirs.
All this bad luck or whatever you want to call it confused me. I knew I was meant to do this thing, and yet I couldn’t get the hang of all the other-than-writing stuff I was supposed to do as an author. No matter what I did, it never seemed right. I didn’t fit in. The harder I tried, the more I seemed to screw up, and the despair over that began to suck all the joy out of writing. I was so miserable at one point I gave up, stopped doing all the author stuff, and got a day job to prepare for the inevitable.
And then something rather wonderful happened. I rediscovered the reasons why I chose to pursue publication. Not for the glam, not for the fame, and not even for the money. I worked to have my writing published because I love to write stories, and I wanted people to read them. That’s all that mattered to me in the beginning, and after going through all that misery, it was all that was left that I wanted to hold onto.
That next year was absolutely amazing. I got my game back. I sold eight books in eight weeks. I quit my new day job. Nightmare over.
I might have spent the rest of my career in blissful isolation, but by then I knew I wasn’t the only oddball in the biz. I’d heard enough horror stories to know that plenty of writers at every stage of the game were ignored, ridiculed, taken advantage of, excluded and otherwise treated badly. I wanted to do something about that, something to change the way things were. To find those writers and to talk shop, pass along what I’d learned, learn from other writers, laugh through the miserable times and party through the good ones. Even if I simply let them know that they weren’t alone, that would be enough. Because back when I was going through hell, I would have sacrificed a limb to know one writer like that.
And finally, I did something right. I decided to be that writer, and made a place in publishing for myself where I did fit in: Paperback Writer.
I still have some bad luck now and then (at the moment I’m wearing a pink T-shirt that reads “If you think this looks ridiculous, you should see the cover on my new book”) but I use it now to let other writers know how to deal with it. Maybe I’m pushing my luck by joining Genreality, but the other members haven’t talked about kicking me out yet, which after the first week is always a good sign.
Truth is, I think I’m quite lucky, even if it took a lot of misfortune to bring me here. Because this is where I do belong.
