2024... A late start, and that's okay.

I am slowly and leisurely starting 2024 with a five-day-late New Year blog post. It's fitting enough, being late to write this, as the topic I want to kick the year off with is patience.

I discuss patience a little bit in my How I Got My Agent blog post, but having been an agented author for 2+ years now with still no books out on shelves... I figure it's a good time to revisit the concept.

As I begin to write this post, I realize that I should preface, reader, with this disclaimer: patience for a writer is not quite the same as the general public's perception of patience. It is not a handful of rejections, but hundreds. It is not weeks or months of waiting, but years. It does not glimmer with the promise of a reward, so long as we work hard and pay our dues, but rather unglamorously soiled with the truth: it just might not work out, no matter the efforts we put in to make it.

So, let's talk about that patience. Impossibly frustrating (to put it lightly), yet unyieldingly necessary for any artist -- yes, authorship is an art.

If you've read my other blog posts (all two of them), you'll know it took close to ten years for me to partner with my literary agent. Reflecting on my time in the query trenches, I remember thinking: if only someone would request a full manuscript, I'll get offers right away. The thought would be followed by: if only I had an agent, my book will sell right away.

Ha.

Despite the hilarity of these sentiments, they kept me going (and yes, if you've been in the writing game for any length of time, you'll find them hilarious). If only I could get one more step farther, I'd surely make it. If only I could improve one more little detail or skill, I'd be in demand by all the editors on our list. This was certainly not patience. It was a cocktail of ambition and hope, and while neither of those things are 'bad' or 'negative' in isolation, without patience, they can be dangerous.

Believing I was in control of my writing journey was 1) an illusion and 2) elective blindness. I was ambitious, so I worked hard. I was hopeful, so I believed my hard work would yield the results I wanted. The lack of patience, or rather, the refusal to accept the need for it in all my ambition and hope left me in a constant loop of tears, depressive spirals, vulnerability, and that haunting question we all face as authors: am I just not good enough?

Because guess what? Eventually, I got my full manuscript requests. Dozens of them. Then, eventually, I got my agent. She's exceptional. Yet, two and a half years after signing my contract with the literary agency, my work is still not on shelves anywhere.

It's right here, on my computer (and with my agent, and in the hands of some very trusted friends). Not published.

At first, my ambition and hope told me that as long as I kept improving and working non-stop to get published, it'd work out. Surely, it'd work out - my 'yes' was right around the corner! But then, my first book died on sub. Early last year, after two rounds of submission to editors, my agent and I made the decision to put it away for the time being and start again with something new. The disappointment was steep. In fact, I'd compare it more closely to grief. It was the drowning feeling of failure - I worked hard. I did everything I could. Why didn't it work out for me?

There was a barrage of desperate questions that followed (see the above paragraphs), but they all led me to the same conclusion: maybe it doesn't solely depend on whether I did everything I could. Maybe, working myself to death and hoping so hard I could cry isn't what is going to get me to my goals. Maybe, it's not all about me being 'good enough'.

Maybe it's just waiting. Then failing. And trying again.

They teach us how to be 'patient' from such a young age, I can barely remember really learning the skill. Wait your turn on the playground. Wait in line at the cash register. Wait for your flight on the airport floor because it got delayed. Again. The difference between that patience and this patience (the patience of a writer), is that there is no assurance that what we are waiting for will happen. Ever. Why? Because at the end of the day, it just isn't up to us.

Accepting that and letting it settle at the back of my mind has granted me more freedom and clarity than I ever could have imagined it would. If the entirety of publishing doesn't actually rest on my shoulders or my craft or my expertise or being good enough, then why not write stories exactly as I want to, rather than the way I think I should?

I have learned, through acknowledging the smallness of my power over the publishing journey, that really, patience is just learning to let go. Whether it works out or doesn't work out -- let go and be proud of the work that you put in. Allow your ambition to make you work hard. Allow your hope to keep your chin up. But be sure to give room for patience in knowing that it doesn't all have to come down to whether you're good enough or not.

It has helped me remember how to enjoy writing again - to let stories come onto the page in a way that delights me. It has helped me to prioritize my own excellence and enjoyment, not the expectations set by an industry that is forever fluid and unpredictable (and sometimes, unfriendly).

So, more to myself than to you, reader, let's make 2024 the year we let patience in and enjoy the writing rather than forcing it. Let it be the year we play and experiment, and be proud of ourselves, no matter the outcome. Let it be the year we let go, we wait, and we try again.

Cheers to a slow start, fellow authors. May the words roll through you in gentle, rhythmic (and patient) waves.

xx

Dane