Here’s what this isn’t. This isn’t a post that tells you to just hold on and everything will work out. Because I don’t know that. Neither does anybody else. And I’m not here to spout toxic optimism.

So if that’s what it’s not, what is it? I don’t know. It’s a story. A true one. And I think, one that embraces what I said up above: that often we don’t know. As authors, we don’t know what’s going to happen when we go on submission or when we put a book out in the world or a whole bunch of other things that are mostly beyond our control. We write books. We control that and that alone.

I think too often it’s easy to skew one way or the other, to be too optimistic or too pessimistic when we just. Don’t. Know.

This is a story about me being on submission with my first novel and how I felt at the time presented not as a model to say ‘you should feel this way’ but as a point of comparison for all those in a similar spot. Do what you will with it. It’s a story I’ve told before in various venues, but it’s on my mind and while the internet is forever, nobody’s looking for that old content. So here it is. I’m going to shorten some of it because it’s stuff I’ve said before, so if you’re super interested in my agent search or other parts of my early career, browse through the blog and you’ll find it.

I signed with my agent, Lisa Rodgers, in March of 2016 and after a few months of edits and preparation, she sent my first novel, PLANETSIDE, out on submission to 17 editors. It was met with a stunning round of indifference. This was not unexpected. It’s sci fi with military tropes, and traditional publishers just aren’t bashing down doors to get at that sub-genre these days. And then the rejections started.

They were very kind, mostly, with some talking about how they liked this or that, but ultimately ending with ‘it’s not for us.’ We got several of those pretty quickly, and then they slowed down, but every so often another would pop up and Lisa would dutifully forward it to me.

The advice everybody gives you when you’re on submission is to work on the next thing. Hey, you should just write the next thing! Well, if it’s not this one, it will be the next one. Yeah. I hear you. And it’s great advice. Write the next thing. But what if you can’t?

Like…it’s not easy. If you can write the next thing…if you’re someone who can turn off your brain and focus on something else, good for you. I mean it. Go write the next thing and skip the rest of this. But if that’s not you…if just write the next thing is hard…I’m with you.

You see, I couldn’t write the next thing.

Why would I write the next thing when my brain was telling me that I suck so bad that nobody wants the thing I just wrote, which, by the way, was the best thing I could write at that time?

Why would I write the next thing when, any day now, someone could decide that they like the *current* thing and buy it and then I’d just have to stop writing the next thing anyway?

If there’s one thing consistent with my brain, it’s that it will always find a reason *cough* excuse *cough* not to do work. I’d change that about myself if I could. Alas, here we are.

I did try. A couple of times. I wrote half of a first act about a grifter who joins the military. I wrote most of the first act of a book about a young lieutenant who has to take leadership of her brigade after a tragedy. But I couldn’t get much past that. And every month, the slow drip of rejections.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

It got to the point where I didn’t rush to open emails from my agent, because why? It was just another rejection. And then it wasn’t. Six months later (which is not actually long by publishing standards) I opened an email and David Pomerico at Voyager like the book and would like a call. And by January we’d sold it in a two book deal and by February I was drafting SPACESIDE and a year and a half later I was a published author.

But this is not a post where I tell you to just persevere and it will all work out. Because that’s a lie. People mean well when they say that, and it’s easy enough to believe when you account for survivorship bias. The fact that you’re reading this at all is absolutely *because* it worked out for me. But publishing is pretty random.

What I’m saying is try not to be too negative, because it *might* work out. Try not to be too optimistic, because it *might not* work out. And, most important, if you figure out how to do this…could you teach me?

But mostly I’m trying to say that whatever you’re feeling, you’re not wrong. People mean well with their advice, so go ahead and listen, and be gracious, and then do what works for you.

For me? That half a first act about the grifter soldier, four years later, was published as THE MISFIT SOLDIER. The first act about the soldier who had to take leadership of her brigade, four years later, was published as THE WEIGHT OF COMMAND.

So…yeah. I’ll end with this. Do what you can. If you can write another novel, write it. If you can manage a first act? Do that. If you can’t write at all? Maybe try to outline something. Or jot down ideas as they come to you. Or work on your craft without writing. Read. Rest and conserve your energy.

Whatever works for you is the right thing.

I’m going to add a link here to my next book so I can tell my publicist that I did a promotional post.

Ha ha! Just kidding. I don’t have a publicist. I’m a mid-lister.

See you next time.