Troubles, Great and Small

“Of all your troubles, great and small, the greatest are the ones that don’t happen at all.” – Thomas Carlyle

What if agents don’t want my book? What if small publishers don’t want it either? And if I self-publish, what if no one wants to read it?

If I had worried about these things before I began writing Twenty-Six Point Freaking Two, my memoir about running and mental illness, I would not have started writing at all. And now, even after I’m far into the process, I still can’t think too far ahead. Rather, I must focus on the small tasks that make up each activity. Write the email. Double check the requirements on the agent or publisher’s website. Check the email again. And again. Hit send. Then wait. Small steps. None of them overwhelming. None of them all that complex.

Depression and bipolar disorder render me easily overwhelmed. I have to chunk things down and keep it very simple. Perhaps other writers are more skilled at doing these things naturally. Perhaps their minds don’t spin negative scenarios the way mine does. Perhaps. Or maybe we all struggle with this in our own ways. I’m thankful I have meditation to help me stay centered. I find my breath. I feel my feet. I look around and ground myself in my surroundings. I think of one small task I can do right now. And then I do that. And then I think of the next small task I can do. And I do that. These small tasks make up my days as a writer. It’s not the big stretches of time. It’s the minute by minute things.

In November, I took a break from submitting and picked up a project I’d set aside many years ago, a book tentatively titled, Eat Your Toast. Ironically, it’s a book of daily practices geared toward helping people, myself included, live in the moment. I struggle with this more than anyone I know. I needed the reminders. I needed to read quotes about it. I needed to research teachers who focus on this. And I needed to write out exercises I could do all month while I was writing the book. I wrote 50,860 additional words on that book as a rebel project for National Novel Writing Month.

And now, in December, I’ll pick up Twenty-Six Point Freaking Two again and continue my journey toward publication. I still don’t know how this will play out. But if my project in November taught me anything, it’s that I don’t need to know the outcome. All I need to know is the next step.

As Far As You Can See

“Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see further.” – Thomas Carlyle

I’ve queried one hundred and five agents. From the results (forty-one rejections and sixty-three no responses with one request for pages still out), I’ve learned my book as currently written might be too narrowly focused to interest a mainstream publisher.

I knew from the outset this might be a possibility. Twenty-Six Point Freaking Two: The Memoirs of an Emotionally Unstable, Middle-Aged Marathoner is primarily about running. It’s also about mental illness, Natalie Goldberg, moving to Taos, meditation, writing, and let’s not forget the supporting characters, Morgan the yellow Labrador and Ed, my husband. But mostly, it’s about running. That topic might not interest enough readers for an agent to take a chance. But I had to try.

And now that I’ve gone this far, I’m going to revise and query more. Might it have been wiser to have made those changes before I began querying in the first place? Of course. But I didn’t know. I wrote the best book I could at the time. Now I will try to improve it and send it out again. Depending on the results of that second round, I will find the next step. I will also continue submitting to contests (the book was semi-finalist in one) and research small presses to see if that might be a better fit.

Sometimes I feel very overwhelmed by the amount of work. But all I need to do is the one thing in front of me. I do the next thing and then the thing after that. And when I’m done with those, I will have more information about what to do after that. More will be revealed, but only by working.

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