When you spend years on a piece of work, there are no guarantees. I’m writing to you from a gorgeous cafe and though I don’t always advocate for sharing all of your business online, this week I’m feeling a release after sharing a TikTok about my first book dying on submission.
Part of my motivation for doing this was because so many people celebrated with me on TikTok in 2023 when I got my agent. Another reason was that many people kept asking me how it was going. When I put it out there, I felt a release.
Rejections hurt, there’s no easy way to get over them. But one of getting over them is by wearing them proudly and releasing them into the world.
So here’s what happened with the first novel I went on submission to publishers with. Wherever you are in the process I hope sharing mine, can help you on your journey.
Submission excitement
I cannot fault my agent in the process. He dedicated so much time and energy into the manuscript. We worked on edits for months, before finally deciding it was ready at the start of 2024. My expectations weren’t that high, honestly I was just hoping for anything, but I also couldn’t resist imagining holding the book in my hands.
After the first month we had one request. Then we had another. Then, crickets. Silence for months.
The waiting
During this time I was also redundant from my job. I felt an immense sense of pressure and constantly weighed up that if I could just get the book contract signed, the rest would feel less overwhelming. But nothing really gave.
They say you should just start something new to alleviate the pressure of the waiting stage. So I did. I wrote an entirely new novel which was an idea I was putting off when we were in edits. I’m so proud of it.
Feedback
Despite some ghosting and no follow ups, there was some great feedback. Some nice comments about my writing style. Some that felt it was too insular.
At this point we had been out for around 7 months and I noticed an interest change in where I applied that feedback. I didn’t feel myself wanting to work through changes on the novel on submission but rather, a project idea I had come up with in 2023.
I suppose at that point, I should have registered that I was going to put that project away. But I couldn’t tell if this was my impatience or becoming distracted by the sparkly new project.
The check ins
People were so excited when I told them that my novel had gone out on submission. People asked me how it was going. Some people told me they were manifesting it for me. It’s great to have this support and I was grateful, but I felt a lot of other feelings.
First there was embarrassment. When I had to tell them it wasn’t really going anywhere. The second, that I didn’t want to speak about it all because then it felt like a real failure. As a self confessed achievement addict, I knew that it was my determination to succeed.
My ego was hurt. When you put so much work into something and it doesn’t land and publishers don’t see the vision, it’s normal to feel hurt by this.
Deciding to put the manuscript away
Towards the end of 2024 I felt that I really didn’t want to be in the waiting stage anymore. I just wanted to move onto something new.
I had also taken all of that feedback and applied it to the new novel. At this point I felt I was growing and maturing as a writer, so publishing the first novel that went out felt like I would be promoting something when I knew I had written better.
So, I decided to end the process there.
Things I’ve learned
Getting to the submission stage for your novel is a great achievement itself, many writers don’t even make it to this stage. I felt lucky, but it was also frustrating when you can see it happen elsewhere.
No matter how much people say, ‘don’t compare’, it’s almost impossible. Rather than beat yourself up for jealousy (which is a normal emotion to have), inspect it instead. Lead with kindness. It’s because you love the writing and the journey. Comparison and joy are two sides of the same coin.
Publishing is fickle and the gatekeepers make decisions. It’s an incredibly hard one to level with. But publishing is known to be risk averse which is helpful and unhelpful. Comforting to know it’s not personal, but annoying that it’s so fickle. In the case of my book, the genre isn’t ‘trending’ at the moment. I was given advice to pivot into different genres that were trending which is good knowledge to have but a decision to weigh up itself.
Moving forward
We can only move forward with the lessons that the process and journey teaches us. I’ve made a crucial promise to myself moving forward. My current novel was formed in the death of the previous. Because of this, I’m much less willing to put that project in the drawer, even if that means I have to adopt a different approach.
It’s not to say I will never revisit my first idea, but right now I’m not quite ready to do anymore work on it.
At the end of the process I had to remind myself that I was the architect of it. To all writers, published novel or unpublished, we have to remember that we are the creators of the work, not people who hold the keys.
My invite to you
If you’re interested in weird literary books. Books with speculative themes. Books with elements of horror that raise some interesting questions, stick around with me here because I’m going to tell you more about the process of getting my book into the world.
And if you’re in this process and have any questions, my comments are wide open. I’m crossing all of the fingers for you with your writing.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I’ve just gone back to the first book I wrote (and also failed to get off the ground) and found it very cathartic, but I also outgrew it like you expressed. It’s a long game, writing!
Such a thoughtful read about an experience I’ve never put enough work into to even get to. I find submitting individual poems hard enough to manage my feelings from. This honesty is really helpful to share.