Storytellersunplugged

The only thing I can bring to this blog is my everyday experience of being a writer, which at this point in time is decidedly unglamourous. My book has been out for a month and I’m still waiting for that call from Oprah, although that may change once it’s revealed that THE UNWELCOME CHILD is actually a memoir. As a first time novelist, I knew it was absurd to expect to be sent out on book tours or receive royalty checks, but I never thought I’d have to join the Doubleday Book Club just to get hardcover versions of my own novel. Now, for the next two years I’ll have to be hyper vigilant so I don’t end up with a library full of books I don’t have room for nor ever intend to read.

In all seriousness, I can’t complain about my first publishing experience. It turned out to be exactly how I was told it would be. You may not believe this, but my favorite part of the whole process was the actual campaign to get this little piggy to market. I liked researching prospective literary agencies and editors. Reading their profiles, finding out their personal interests, whether they preferred camping to political activism, wasn’t unlike searching for a prospective mate on one of those on-line dating services.

Admittedly there were some aspects I detested, such as the composition of the dreaded query letter, where the essence of a three hundred page book has to be distilled into three sentences or less. And I wasn’t crazy about assembling all those mail packets, a tedious albeit crucial step in the marketing process that had to be undertaken with utmost care lest a letter addressed to one agent be put into an envelope addressed to another. But the real joy came from opening my mailbox and seeing all those responses to my querying. It’s true the majority were rejections, but that only made the occasional request to read the entire manuscript that much sweeter. When I finally did find my agent, (Ann Collette, she’s wonderful) it was like being part of a crime-fighting duo. She was WonderWoman to my SuperGirl, battling the evil conglomerates (publishers who declined my book) in order to bring light to the dark world of publishing. Needless to say, in the end justice prevailed for both bookworms and impulse buyers everywhere. Not only can THE UNWELCOME CHILD now be found in bookstores and on-line, it can also be found at check out lines in supermarkets of quality everywhere.

But now it’s back to the drudgery of writing. SuperGirl has turned her tights in for sweat pants, and these days the only thing I’m fighting is the urge to raid the fridge whenever I hit a frustrating patch of prose. It’s a battle I appear to be losing, considering that during the writing of this essay I’ve consumed a ham and cheese sandwich and nibbled off all the chocolate from a humongous peanut butter cup. (I’m not a total glutton; I left the filling for my husband). Is this depression? No, it’s just reality. Yes, after all these years of striving I can now say I am a legitimate writer. I’ve been paid, I’ve been published. But has it really changed anything in my life? Even if my book had been one of those million in one success stories I would still be back at square one, sitting at my computer struggling with plot inconsistencies, character glitches and bad similes. One thing I’ve learned from this whole experience is that whether you’ve been published or not, it never gets easier. No wonder I liked the marketing part best! Anyway, if I ever hope to be published again, I’d better get back to work. Right after I finish off the rest of that peanut butter cup.