the manuscript, pt. 2

on wanting your book to be published, magic doors, and almost giving up

No one ever really talks about the often grueling, strange, and demoralizing process of figuring out what to do with a book after you write it. Writing is all magical and creative and ethereal until you find yourself with your life’s work heaped in your arms and nowhere to set it down. That is an uncomfortable state of being! It is a huge thing to write a book, and then another very different huge thing to help it find its way to readers. It involves a lot of luck, a lot of risk, a lot of fear, a lot of hope. Successful writers are very devoted and talented of course, but they are also LUCKY DUCKS! I say this as a resident lucky duck! I have been so lucky to have three books published with my name on them. That is, frankly, wild! I still can’t believe it. And yet, my future is not sorted. With a fresh book-length poetry manuscript in hand (truly my favorite I’ve written yet!), I have found myself once again at the dangerous intersection of luck/risk/fear/hope, and I’m here to write about it today because — I mean, someone should!!!

Writing exists at the center of my heart and at the periphery of my career. That might sound strange coming from someone with three books — but I have never felt the kind of legitimacy in my writing career that I have painted onto others I admire. Does it ever feel real? Maybe at some point in history it did, back in the golden age when journalists made six figures and the average writer was making a living by just writing. I have quite a few jobs, and writing is barely one of them. As I’ve said before, writing books feels more like a very emotional and time-consuming hobby than it feels like a job — and I think that’s entirely the fault of culture + industry versus any sort of inscription of value (but that’s a conversation for another time). I hate to sound disillusioned, but that’s where I’ve found myself. My second poetry book especially felt so raw and tender to share, and it was so quietly received. I did all of the publicity myself, and felt like I did it badly. I did everything I could think of to do, which still didn’t feel like enough. I am so proud of that book. I know people have read and cherished it, but little of that feedback has found its way back to me. That’s ok. But as I try to keep writing and (hopefully) publishing books, I’d be lying if I said that that experience didn’t affect my confidence. You think you’ll feel a certain way when your book comes out. When it doesn’t feel that way, something I can honestly only relate to postpartum depression sets in. For me, that meant shaking off almost all of my ideas of having a “career” in writing, and simply carrying on, writing and shaping that writing into books because I love to do it. It meant making zines, to control the means of production. It meant investing in other career paths. It meant continuing to write what I love to write because I love to write. It meant un-tethering my worth as a writer from my career as a writer, letting those two paths go in very different directions. So much unknowing. So much release.

But, when I found myself with a full book’s worth of poems again that I love (as discussed in part one of this essay), I felt surprised by how deeply and truly I wanted it to become a book, and not just a book but a book. I looked at the book and could see it was beautiful. This is the one, I felt myself thinking, bewildered. Unleash the floodgates of unfettered desire and ambition! I wanted a bigger publisher this time. I wanted more money. I wanted HELP. I wanted a different experience, and I didn’t want to self-publish (despite my satisfaction and success publishing zines). All of those things together felt like a scary thing to want. It’s something I sent out into the universe as a little cry, like throwing an imaginary net. You can’t know which calls of the heart will get a response, but you call out anyway!

My response was a surprise dm. I shared a poem on Instagram about excercise of all things, tagging the movement instructor ( Kara Duval, you truly rock), who re-shared it to her followers. A few hours later, I got a dm from a literary agent, a fellow Range devotee. A magic door swung open. I had a contact, I had a chance. That felt truly huge. I couldn’t believe that happened! But I wasn’t through the door yet. I had to finish the book. And I had to not freak out and fumble the ball. Both of those felt like big tasks. I left this early exchange with the literary agent and her colleague with some big questions answered, an open invitation to send a manuscript when I had one, and a huge handful of glistening hope.

And then I just…kept writing. Nothing to do but the work! I gathered all the poems I’d written in 4.5 years. I shaped them into a book (outlined in part one). After compiling the manuscript, I sent it to two of my best friends and most trusted writing companions, Hannah M. Cruz and Jessie Epstein. If there is any advice I can give to anyone who wants to write and publish books in any capacity, it is to find friends who will read your work and give their honest opinion. Friends whose taste you trust, friends who won’t bullshit you, friends who are excellent editors, friends who know and love you and understand where you’re coming from and where you hope to go. I don’t know where you find friends like that (thank goodness I found mine in our college theater ensemble, which is not an easily repeatable equation!) but it is important that you find them somewhere!!! The feedback they gave me was SO valuable. It is hard (maybe impossible) to productively edit your own work, especially when that work is so close to the bone. My friends’ feedback helped me cut poems, helped me re-order poems, helped me figure out how to make the book feel like something cohesive and deliberate. Their feedback also helped me feel like the book wasn’t horrible — like it was worth moving forward with. That is a huge gift, one that I will never take for granted.

Then I felt a little frozen. I knew the manuscript was ready, or at least mostly ready. I read it half a dozen more times. I cut a few more poems, edited the author’s note. I revised a few poems that felt clunky, switched a few things around. All of this felt productive, but ultimately not that meaningful. It was time to just exhale and take the next step. A huge moment of truth. I sent the manuscript to the agent in a burst of bravado while I was in the waiting room at the ophthalmologist, feeling somewhat manic and terrified. Sending that email felt like ripping a bandaid off or jumping into a cold lake. I was holding the very real possibility that they would say “no.” This was the most fear I have ever felt as a writer — because I knew that that “no” was very possible, and that given everything, it truly might mean giving up. The idea of pursuing small presses again or self-publishing, or really any version of trying to make this book become a book without an agent, felt like something I didn’t have the resilience to do at this point in my career. In so many ways, sending that email felt like my one and only shot. I had no way of predicting what they might say.

And then I waited for a month. Waiting felt quiet and calm. I understood that it was out of my control, that I couldn’t influence their decision. When my book would float to the top of my mind I would feel a soft jolt of panic, and then I could let it go. It will be what it will be. I cannot force this to happen. I did my best work. I wrote the book that was in me to write. I love this book so much. It will speak for itself. Maybe it’s for the world. Maybe it’s just for me. I’ll be ok either way, I’ll be ok either way. Repeat that again and again.

And then I got an email back, asking to talk next steps with me. My agents (!!!) loved the book, and we are going to start working on some developmental edits soon. HOPE! HOPE HOPE HOPE! And the first time in a long time my career as a writer, as a poet, has felt like something truly real! I did a happy dance after that meeting and called my husband and my writing friends, gushing with joy. That magic door stayed open, and I stepped so tenderly through. (A + C, if you’re reading this, I’m so excited and grateful!)

Oh, my friends. I don’t know what to say except that I’m so happy and still scared. Obviously representation doesn’t mean the book will definitely be published by a major imprint — but it does make it feel much more like a real possibility worth working toward rather than a distant pipe dream. And, if nothing else, it is a very meaningful vote of confidence in a moment where my future as a writer was feeling so very uncertain. Is it uncool to share about all of this? Should I wait and coyly just post the Publisher’s Marketplace announcement when and if the time comes like everyone else does? It almost feels like sharing news about a pregnancy just after taking the test — so tender, so hopeful, no guarantees. But talking about the strange and winding road of book publication feels important to me — there is no reason why it should be such a black box! There is no reason to keep our careers and their twists and turns a secret. I know a lot of writers, and especially mother-writers, follow me, and I think I just want to re-affirm that this is all possible. My book is about motherhood, it is sentimental and emotional and written from life — and it really might become a real book! This is a dream that is worth dreaming, even if it feels far away! A lot can change in a few months in unexpected ways. I wish I could offer a quick how-to, but that’s now how this works. I think, unfortunately, it has to be a labyrinth, with something unexpected around every turn. All you can do is keep walking the path.

For some reason, writing about all of this almost feels taboo. Like I might get in trouble (???) for talking about how it all has happened and how it has felt. I wonder why — I think for some reason many writers (including myself!) have the impulse to keep all the business and publishing stuff a secret, as if discussing it will make it all fall apart. Is that true? I don’t want to keep everything a secret! Writing is hard, and it is often very lonely. Writing has mostly been work I’ve done alone, without much guidance. I have my friends, whose companionship has meant so much to me. I have had editors in the publishing process, but those relationships have felt limited to the project. I have been so lucky and it has still been hard. For the first time, I feel like I don’t have to carve every path out all by myself. In our meeting, I was joking with my agents that they are book doulas or book midwives, and I think the comparison really tracks. You could give birth by yourself, but do you really want to? Wise support is always a positive thing. I could maybe get this book to some sort of publication myself, but do I want to? No, I don’t. I actually really don’t. I want help! I want to do something different! I want more brains that just my own! I want professional advice, a sounding board, and gentle course correction! I want this book to beget more books. I want to find my way onto different roads I don’t have access to myself. I want expertise! And, after ten years of writing and sharing that writing diligently and in solitude, on the brink of some kind of exhaustion, that help is beckoning me onward. Ok! Let’s keep going! More is possible!

If I hadn’t gotten that Instagram dm from my agent a year ago, I really don’t know what I would have done with this manuscript. That’s the part that’s hard to communicate, and the grain of salt I really want to communicate along with this essay that might sound like someone bragging about their wild luck. I say that because my whole career (or lack thereof) up until just now was spent without an agent’s email in my inbox. That was a huge threshold to cross, and it doesn’t make the part of my career before this any less real — it was just different. And, in many ways, harder, or lonelier, more confusing. If you are out there writing books that you are so proud of all on your own with very little help, just know that you are not alone in that (even though you feel alone). What you are doing is hard and amazing. I wish help for you too! I wish I’d had more help navigating my first two poetry book deals, I wish I’d had the access and support then that my agents will be able to offer to me and my book now. But I didn’t. And I kept working anyway. And I wrote some beautiful books that were published with lovely small presses, and all of that felt so lucky too. And I am so proud of all of that work that I did with so little help and such murky paths forward. So I don’t know if this is encouraging or discouraging to hear, but all you can do is keep writing and keep sharing that writing in whatever way makes sense to you. Do it if you love to do it. Step back when you need to. I hope for magic doors in just the nick of time for you too. I hope you can write what you love to write, and I hope it can find its way exactly where it needs to go.

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to magic doors!
xoxo,

Amy