When I first started out on my writing journey I was fourteen years old. Now, a few years later, I am not published like I imagined I'd have been. In fact, when I look back at my fourteen year old self I can't help but giggle because I actually had sent out three queries and thought agents would be fighting for my novel and a quick F.Y.I to my fourteen year old self, the query sucked! Go throw that query out!
Here I am now, and I've been offered representation which I've declined because it wasn't the right fit. I'm looking at things totally differently. Writing a book is like walking a long damn road, super long, and littered with broken glass. All those ugly or may I say kinda interesting chunks of broken glass represent all those obstacles of getting published. But hey, I don't care anymore. I honestly don't care. Hell, I am enjoying writing and reworking my book so much that I'd rather wait longer to get it published and now that I look at it, I wouldn't have wanted my fourteen year old self to publish. Why? Because everything pretty much sucked. It was like the very start to a skeleton which I've built on, and if I would have published that skeleton, I would have never been able to take it back. Yikes. So basically I don't care about getting published as much as I used to and believe it or not, its brought me luck. I mean, I have a great agent waiting for a rewrite and a request from another large agency. We'll see how that goes. Just this time, I'm not dying from checking my e-mail every 5 minutes. What have you learnt from your writing journey?
Your still young, your have your whole life to become and amazing writer! I think you're doing it just right ;)
ReplyDeleteI haven't been there yet but I would imagine it takes a great deal of composure and self-restraint to walk away from an offer even when you know it's not right for you. Well done for thinking long term and putting the writing before the publishing.
ReplyDeleteAh, this reminds me of my daughter. She's 8 and she loves writing picture books. And every time she finishes one she asks me if it's good enough to publish. Someday, I tell her.
ReplyDeleteI think you make a great points here, and am so glad that you are waiting for the right representation! You have to keep at it until you are ready--which I think has nothing to do with age. I'm crossing my fingers that a better fit comes your way soon! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteAlso--I think that broken glass is quite beautiful!
Thank you everyone and thank you so much for stopping by!
ReplyDelete