Taking the note
Revelations after my first batch of memoir query rejections, Fledgling Newsletter #81
Some advice not always offered in workshop is how to approach utilizing the suggestions brought up in session. A writer sharing their work with others for feedback should at least know this one tip:
If the workshop comments (about a concept, a sentence, a character, anything) come back all over the map (i.e. Gary doesn’t believe a girl that height would be that shy, Shay doesn’t really understand what being tall has to do with playing the guitar, and Jody likes the tall bit just the way it’s written) then it’s up to the writer to choose which note aligns most with their story’s greater intention—your why. Maybe you’ll even decide it’s fine the way it is, and besides, there are plenty of Jody’s out there.
But if the comments return and they are all the same (Gary, Shay, and Jody agree: they don’t see wanting to be a cruise musician to be a strong enough desire for your main character) then it’s time to pay attention and get your revision hat on.
I follow the same rule of thumb for querying a book project. If the comments are all over the map, I tinker and keep querying as I see fit, but if the comments are all the same, I pull the book for a revision. Sure, getting different comments can be frustrating, but getting the same one means there’s a definite problem.
This time around querying my memoir I’m beginning to collect the same comment. The catch is it’s not something I can overhaul using my writing skills. The note has nothing to do with premise, the writing, or the story. All of that agents seem to like! It has to do with platform.
I followed up with the agents and editors who suggested I work on my internet presence to ask about how many followers a book like mine might need behind it to get it traditionally published.
Numbers came back between 10 and 100 thousand, numbers that rarely grow that way organically, even after a big byline (friends published in Vogue and NYT recently reported gaining maybe one thousand with their big publications). 50,000 followers in a short time basically necessitates going viral.
This is a tall order for a modern day writer but it’s the reality I am experiencing, and I know others, especially in the memoir space, are too. The thing is, even though I want to take this personally (I get it, I’m a nobody!) it’s not about me, and annoyingly it’s not about the writing. It’s about the market.
I feel infected by reflection as it is the last month of the year. Where I wish I was full of revelation this year I’m honestly having to push myself to think of how I’ve moved the needle.
It feels embarrassing to return to the subject of rejection two months in a row, so I almost didn’t. But, I’ve always felt to be a teacher of the craft it’s my responsibility to share the lessons I’ve learned through practice. The hardest part of writing is that there are so many different paths to take, how do you know which turn is yours? I think it helps to look down the roads other writers have taken. Knowledge and experience count for something!
I know this is all at the risk of sounding diseased by delusion and people wondering if I have ever just considered my book is not good. Believe me, every writer thinks this every other day. I was emboldened to speak my experience because of a recent Substack article which proves my experience is not the only one of its kind. Of course, now I can’t find it! But believe me, the people are talking about it: memoir is hard to sell.
I want to warn you about this potential dead end, but also assure that it could very well not be, as the alleged article shared. A project like mine could do very well with an independent press whose audience aligns with mine (hi, independent presses, I’ll be contacting you soon)! My memoir might fall into the hands of its rare and random champion at a dinner party, on the subway, at a writing center! It may sit in its desktop folder and be resurrected in five years when I am less of a nobody than I am now!
Hope prevails, friend. But the market the Big Five must please in order to make any money does, too. If my rule of thumb holds true—that a repeated note ought to be listened to—then I think it’s time to pivot from the original plan.
So how, you might ask, am I coping? How the heck do you move forward at the end of a dead end when you feel like you’ve lost too much time the way to your goals? And the answer is really a cliche one:
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
At the end of my first internship in NYC with Grove Atlantic, publisher Morgan Entrekin read the novel I was working on and gave me similar feedback, sure the writing is good, but I don’t know if I can sell it.
So what do I do? I asked.
He said, Write the next thing, write something better.
It may at first be a tough pill to swallow, but in fact, this is the work of being a writer. And in that work is the freedom of the craft. There may not be a corporate ladder to climb, but you can always keep writing and getting better. No one can take your next great idea from you.
Morgan’s advice may not only be some of the best advice I’ve gotten. It may be the only piece of advice that really matters.
How do I become a writer? write more
How do I get published? write more
How do I get taken seriously? write more
How do I heal? write more
Write more.
Like all notes, take it or leave it. But remember what’s true of people is generally true for the writing business: It’s harder but a lot more effective to change the way you react than to try to retrain established patterns in others.
Somehow, I still feel right on the edge of my next big work, and my writing gets better and better. It is so darn fulfilling. Even though I am uncertain about my career, I’m really happy doing it.
Yesterday I walked the dog, planned new prompts for the last month of Lunch Break for the year, wrote this newsletter, wrote the end of a chapter of my novel, read a student’s manuscript, made a new website that will support a future Fledgling dream, developed a new pitch, and watched a film to research for the piece I’m pitching. Not a bad day. In fact, I have no notes!
News:
Flight Behavior, Fledgling’s generative novel planning workshop, and one of my personal pride-and-joys, returns March 3rd! Banish any excuse not to write AND finish your book by the end of six weekly sessions + a daily prompt calendar. I truly believe nothing beats this foundational method.
Committed Creative Club, a new weekly accountability hour, will begin on Thursdays in January. Open to paid subscribers, this once weekly community session will be for revising, finishing, and creative exploration. We’ll start by setting intentions, write/create together for 40 minutes, and share out at the end about our progress.
Prompts:
Turn your phone on airplane mode. Choose a prompt. Write to it for 10 minutes. If you want to keep going, keep going. If you like what you write, reply it back to me and maybe see it in the newsletter next month...
Write a eulogy for what you lost this year. Physical items, beliefs, people, a closed restaurant you can’t return to. What revelations can you attribute to moving through each loss? Let yourself write about losses great and small, from your faith in humanity to your sunglasses.
Write your own “Coming Home” poem inspired by Laura Gilpin’s about returning to your family home during the holidays. Zoom in on something very specific and either environmental or bodily that has changed since you were a kid. Maybe it hardly gets cold enough for the pond to freeze over anymore, maybe you can’t tolerate how low the heat is kept anymore, maybe you get stuffy nosed around your mom’s new cat, maybe you can reach the liquor cabinet that you used to use a step ladder to get to…
And lastly, something to read:
Coming Home by Laura Gilpin