Coping with Failure

Tuesday 24th October 2023, WIP 1551 new words, 0 new rejections, 5 new submissions, finished The Cleverest Woman in England (brilliant ending), as well as Following Frankenstein by Catherine Bruton and Becoming Muhammad Ali by James Patterson and Kwame Alexander (work research), reading Beloved by Toni Morrison and listening to Wintering by Katherine May, 4 new book purchases (shouldn’t have gone in that charity shop), 2 coffees and a generous slice of peanut butter traybake

What a productive start to half-term. Three books read and another 1500 words written (draft one of my WIP complete – albeit in need of some extensive revision). Sounds positive, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, the start to half-term arrived in tandem with an unwanted guest. Moody Kate. With my hormones everywhere, I spent the first three days in some kind of peri-menopausal fog where I had no idea what I was doing or why. The approach of my blog birthday perhaps adding to my gloom, as eleven months on, I am no closer to publication.

Since starting this blog I have written With Everything I Know (50,900) and completed the first round of edits, re-drafted You Can See the End of the World From Here into first person and completed a short YA retelling of The Tempest. This blog alone equates to 48,300 words. With a total of 114,700 words written, I am averaging 10,500 words a month. I may be no closer to publication, but I smashed my goal to write more regularly.

With no full manuscript requests and no recent rejections, the lure of self-publication creeps back in, reminding me I do have options as a writer. When my daughter was twelve, she made me promise if I wasn’t published by the time I was forty that I would self-publish. I agreed. I had two years ahead of me… that deadline passed seven years ago. Why did I renege on my promise?

Virginia Woolf built a printing press in her dining room. Hogarth Press was named after her house. This blog shows many well known authors self-published (as does this blog and this blog…) With so many successful writers on these lists, why am I too embarrassed to try? The anticipation of negative evaluation from others stops me. Fear of people reading my work, and thinking I am a fool. With no agent or publisher to defend me, with no seal of approval from the industry, the voice in my head says I am not good enough. Perhaps this is not about publishing snobbery but a self-confidence issue. I should consult my friend, shecoachesconfidence, for some tips.

My daily internal narrative revolves around my journey to publication. Every night before I go to sleep, I hold my wishbone pendant and rub it like a lucky penny. As if tomorrow might bring a full manuscript request. My last couple of reads have featured ambitious men – Lin Manuel Miranda and Mohammad Ali. Their self-confidence poking fun at my lack of it. Where is my inner champion? I think she might be in a quiet room somewhere, probably reading. To try and break my mood, I dragged her out and submitted to another agent (and followed that with another four today). Menopausal mood swings, you will not break me.

I wrote all of this yesterday when my hormone hell had me feeling so out of sorts, I dragged my physical body around like a dead weight. Self-publishing seemed like a sensible option. This morning I woke to a flurry of congratulatory messages to my friend Tian Yi (an amazing talent) who won the 4thWrite prize this week. Embarrassment at the thought of self-publishing struck me all over again.

This morning I devised a new plan: continue on my journey along this Yellow Brick Road (dodging the potholes) until I reach my one year anniversary. Querying You Can See the End of the World From Here until the end of the year whilst completing a further edit of With Everything I Know. In January, I will start the querying process for my ‘old lady’ story – maybe she will be my breakthrough novel (I think my grandma would rather like that!).

Kate

P.S. I decided to do a tarot reading to answer my big question – should I self publish? The results are in the image above. The reading points to new beginnings and following your instinct. Hopeful.

P.P.S. Considered deleting this whole post as my first world problems feel self-pitying. My promise to be honest on this blog stopped me. This is not a plea for sympathy or a fishing expedition…consider it an honest account of the emotional highs and lows of the querying process (and the peri-menopause).