After Signing with my Agent: Another Rewrite & the Fear of Failure
Dealing with the daunting question every author faces: "What if my book doesn't sell?" 😨
Note: The recording above is a reading of this newsletter, the content is no different. If you’re someone who needs or prefers to hear their news, I hope you enjoy my dulcet tones.
Hello! I’m Caroline Davis, a YA sci-fi author represented by the agency behind Hunger Games. I’m currently preparing my first book, MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA, to sell to publishers this fall. This newsletter shares my latest author updates & creative process musings.
I pressed a button. Just a tap of the same mousepad I tap every day, but with that touch, I sent my rewritten manuscript to my agent. The third major rewrite of this novel, and also, the fourth time I’ve taken a big breath and hit send to her:
The first time was in Dec 2021, when I sent her my first chapter after pitching her at a virtual conference
The second time was 2 hours later, after she read the first chapter and loved it, and asked me to send her the full manuscript
Fast-forward a year later to November 2022, I sent her a revised manuscript, 9 months after she requested a substantial Revise & Resubmit (also called an R&R)
Seven months after that, in July 2023, is when I sent her this re-revised manuscript, which was 4.5 months after she signed me as a client
Four times I’ve sent something to her, and each time, it’s been a wave of excitement, relief, and unknown. Will she like it?
Of course she’ll like it. It’s the best work I’ve ever done!!!
But…I’ll probably definitely have to revise it again.
The irony in being a writer is you must simultaneously think your work is the most glorious thing ever (otherwise why spend so much time on it?) while also knowing that it will never be perfect. It can always be better. In fact, some people will downright hate it.
And there will always be more rewrites.
As a wise man once said, “if I had more time, I would’ve written a shorter letter.” Over these rewrites, I cut my story length significantly and yet, it is fuller and stronger than before. My first draft I sent to agents was 103k. When I rewrote the story as an R&R for Alli, I cut it to 82k. In this rewrite, I pulled out plot lines and cut characters, and ended up at 75k. Which is interesting because I also added POVs and pre-chapter snippets, so it felt like net-net, I was adding!
I’ve learned the mistakes of not planning out my story thoroughly enough in advance, especially for the complex plot twists and world-building of sci-fi. For this draft, I spent just as much time planning out what I was going to write (68 hours of planning) as I did doing the actual initial drafting, which was 60 hours. So actually, more planning than drafting!
For me, all the work came in revision: 137 hours! Finessing and tweaking what I’d already planned.
That’s 265 hours spent on just this one rewrite! And this still isn’t the final product.
Next steps:
My agent will review it, hopefully think it’s perfect (ha), and then we will submit it to publishers this fall. Hopefully they love it, too.
Lots of hope. 🤞
(and a healthy dose of cynicism)
There’s been this shark shadow lurking in the depths of my mind. This thought I swim away from. The whisper of…“what if this book doesn’t sell?”
The thought triggers a narrative: oh that poor Caroline, spent over three years trying to become a published writer, and she FAILED.
The more evil cousin of the F words.
The thought leads to another thought, as thoughts tend to do:
If I don’t sell, does that mean … this was a waste of time?
I almost fell down that downward spiral, and then I thought, “hold up. Why is THIS a failure? There are so many things in life we do and move on from, and we never consider those ‘a waste.’ So why this?”
I studied and passed all three levels of the CFA exam, and then left the finance industry. Now, no one can even call me Caroline Davis, CFA. (Sigh) Was that a waste? Money, time, lack of social life. Maybe.
I threw myself full-on into my 3-year project at LinkedIn, even winning the cross-functional MVP award in front of my entire department in Las Vegas. Now, I don’t even know where that award is. Or what to do with it. A paperweight? I could… carry it around my neck? Since I’m no longer working in tech, the award means very little.
Was that a waste?
Maybe you’re nodding- yes, they were. Maybe you’re shaking your head-no, they weren’t. But I’m not arguing for or against the wastes in my life. I’m pointing out thats it’s all about perception. How we choose to view and perceive a narrative. The villain is the good guy in their own story, no? We can tell a story from many angles. It’s up to us.
Maybe this book won’t sell. Maybe everyone will whisper, poor Caroline, what a waste.
But they probably won’t. I am not the protagonist in your life to consume that much brain space. I am a mere side character, with my own goals and dreams. Waste or not, isn’t this what life is about? The process of living it?
Wasted Time or Living Life?
I change strategies depending on where I’m at in a book, but for these final weeks of sick-and-tired-of-this, I relied on:
public spaces
body doubling
I found an author friend on a similar deadline and we dragged ourselves to a Starbucks for two weeks straight, every day, for 3-6 hour stints. I would crank out my non-author job from 7am-1pm and feel too burnout to write, but I’d haul myself to that Starbucks, and together, we wrote. The temptations of home were too great. And the accountability of my writing buddy got me there.
I’d like to write to you more frequently, with the goal of 1x per month. (No promises though, seeing as my previous cadence has been once per year). What type of content would you like to see from me? Do you like this “format” (it’s new) of a writing update, some musings (which I’m full of), and a productivity tip?
I came up with this as I sit on a 1.5 hr flight to Sacramento for a wedding, so I won’t be insulted if you want something different than this. Airplanes make me pensive. (And cry during movies)
Let me know!
🌊❤️,
Caroline
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