PRESSURE TO SUBMIT

Queries and Synopsis are the life blood of any writer to get their books out there. It’s street name is submitting. Now there are other rare but few ways to get your book in front of an agent or editor. For instance at RWA conferences there are agent and editor appointments. You pitch your book idea and if the editor or agent likes what they hear she/he might ask for you to send a full or partial. Nerve wracking to say the least.

Now the question is when do you start this process. I don’t mean after the first draft or even when you’ve written THE END, but when you can step back from the story and say, “Okay, it’s ready.” A small percentage of writers will never get to this stage. It takes guts to put your book out there in the big, good ,sometimes bad, publishing world.

To me at least it’s more than being done with a book. Did I do my absolute best? Should I learn a little bit more before I submit? ie. turning points, character arcs, pacing, so on and so forth. Or the worst question a writer needs to ask themselves: Am I just avoiding the whole rejection process?

To a certain extent I can’t come up with clear cut answers to these questions. I can say for me with my first book I shouldn’t have sent off a Q&S. I couldn’t find what was “off” with the book, but since I was technically done, and sending out Q&Ss is what writers are supposed to do, that’s what I did. Even now I feel the pressure to send out more Q&S. I have three books under my belt. Shouldn’t I know enough about writing to write a good story?(okay, stop laughing) Yet, I feel I haven’t had enough practice or know how to write a book that I feel will grab a reader and make them love the characters and their story as much as I do. I know everyone isn’t going to love my writing. At the same time I shouldn’t feel like I just put a book out there and someone happened to buy it.

This isn’t a self-esteem issue. This isn’t me being too scared to submit. Writing is something I don’t want to half-ass my way through, which is a revalation within itself.

Will other’s disagree?

Of course.

For me it comes down to my writing needs more work. (Can someone say comma usuage?) (The best example I can think of is wanting a two month old baby to walk on it’s first try. They don’t even know they have legs yet.) More importanly, I’m not in this game just to get published –what many consider the mecca of writing. There is nothing wrong with that goal and hopefully I’m not coming off as a snob. Yet, right now I’m not getting paid to do this, but I love it. Even if God beams down from heaven and tells me I will never be published, I will still write.

After saying all that, yes maybe there is a little ego involved, I don’t want crap published with my name on it especially if I was the one who wrote it. This is more about self-reflection and for me to stop beating myself up about sending out 3 Q&S. (one a year) Am I wrong to want to say this is the only thing I don’t suck at?

Okay, I’m done. I’ll get off my soap box now.