September 2020. The school year had started. I had finished the first draft of my first novel. And I was ecstatic!

However, a few things were working against me.

1. I was too excited and too desperate.

I cringe thinking about this now, but I truly thought this book was going to save me.

Ugh.

I was determined to make the 2020-21 school year my last year of teaching, and I had it in my head that this book was the ticket.

Spoiler alert: It wasn’t.

Because I was so desperate for this book to be my out, I rushed a process that takes months, even YEARS. But I had created this sense of urgency around leaving teaching that I didn’t give the book the time and attention it deserved.

I only had until June for the book to take off. What a fool I was.

(Mind you, we were fully remote at this time, and my classes were extraordinary. So, what I was fleeing from, who can say. Except for the fact that I knew we would return at some point to in-person classes, and I knew it was time for the next chapter in my career.)

2. I didn’t take enough time between readings.

When I finished my first draft, I immediately printed a copy out at Staples and read through it in a weekend. Probably because it was only 55,000 words.

The book was…a first draft. Which is to say, there was a lot of work to be done. There were things to add, scenes to develop further, 20,000 additional words to find.

I took no time between when I wrote END and when I read the manuscript, which in hindsight, I should have taken at least a week or two away from the book before I even attempted to read it in full.

But, as stated in the first section of this blog, I was too excited and too desperate. So, with red pen in hand, I made notes on my printed copy and started the first rewrite a few days after I finished the first draft.

The rewrite took about six weeks to finish, at which point I printed another hard copy at Staples, read through it, and thought, “Oh this is good!”

*cringe* – It was not, in fact, good.

3. I queried the second draft of the novel.

DO NOT DO THIS! I REPEAT DO NOT DO THIS!

A novel is NEVER DONE AT ITS SECOND DRAFT. I suffice it to say that it can take upwards of 7, 8, 20 drafts before a novel is truly done.

But there I was. Overexcited and desperate. And I thought, “It’s time!”

I decided I was going to start querying agents on November 1st. (Another rookie move as we were moving into the holiday season.)

Again, I reiterate that I didn’t know anything about this process. I didn’t know about Publishers Marketplace. I didn’t know about Manuscript Wishlist. I didn’t even know how to write a query letter. What I had was google. Honestly, I can’t even remember how I found the poor agents that I initially assaulted with this poor excuse for a novel.

I cobbled together the best query letter I could write with the little knowledge I had, and started google searching, “Literary Agents”. Oh, the fool I was.

I think the first agency I sent it to was Trident. Because go big or go home. I sent my query package to about 10 agents that first day, then closed my computer and went for a walk with my husband.

But I had this sad sinking feeling in my gut like the feeling you get when you go on a date with someone, and you think the date went well, but then the next day you get that gut feeling like, “Oh, this isn’t going anywhere is it?” And you try to tell yourself that your gut is wrong, but your gut isn’t wrong. And you just feel sad.

Yeah. That’s what it felt like. Not a great sign.

4. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Over the course of the next year, there was a lot of silence and a lot of rejections.

I showed up to the now defunct Twitter/X Pitch Wars, where an agent liked my post. I spent one whole Saturday cleaning up the manuscript (another sign that she wasn’t ready), sent it off, and was rejected two weeks later.

I worked with an editor, who I was hopeful would be able to make the book sellable. And eventually applied to participate in a writer’s conference.

Through that writer’s conference I learned a bit about the world of writing and met another writer who I am still friends with today. He is actually the best thing to come out of that first writer’s conference.

An agent requested pages only to reject the manuscript.

But all the while, I was gaining knowledge that I’d be able to use when I wrote my next book. I had a list of agents who actually got back to me. I knew how to use Publishers Marketplace and Manuscript Wishlist. I made friends.

5. Having a community of writer/creative friends is essential.

Writing a book can be a lonely endeavor.

And during the process of writing my first novel, I felt so lost.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a template for living the life of a writer. I was in the throes of leaving teaching, which had been my career and identity my entire adult life.

To say I cried a lot, I could have filled an ocean.

And one of the most frustrating parts of it all is that I kept finding these people who I thought I had connected with, only to be abandoned by them. It was like floating on a raft with no island in sight. I had made this big leap and the people who said I could hold their hands let go.

Which led me to wonder, maybe this wasn’t meant to be. Maybe I had read the whole thing wrong. I had written a book, a dream I never thought possible, but it felt like every opportunity led nowhere. If something was meant to happen, wouldn’t it be easier than this?

Well. Not necessarily.

I relied on my the writer/creative friends I made throughout that first year. We shared our stories and our frustrations and our shoulders. They kept my spirits and my hopes high when all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sob.

They were my raft out of the dark.

So what happened with that first novel?

Join me next Saturday to find out.