Havi, hope and an unexpected hero

I’ve been lots of people since the last post. I’ve been a shrivelled up husk of a woman, eaten up with jealousy. I’ve been a bubble of swirling colours lit by sunshine, lifted up by kind words from people who really know how this feels. I’ve been a coward, sitting, staring at the folder that contains the pages left to be edited. I’ve been the villain, watching brittle dreams being sabotaged by my own hands.

I’ve mostly been stewing in my little misery pot, feeling dreadfully stuck as the delicious Havi would say. So I went on over to her place and read her latest in a series about talking to her blocks. Honestly, when you have an emotional cold, I thoroughly recommend one part tea, four parts Havi.

Then I thought about a few posts I written lately, in which I’ve mentioned having Fear, but then hurriedly skimmed over it. At the time of writing them, I thought I was saving all of you from having to read more of my bleating. But when I really thought about it today, I realised I wasn’t protecting you.

I was protecting myself – in the most limiting way – that’s what fear does after all.

Then I recalled three times in the last two days where I have had an offer from someone to read my book and comment. And you know what, I made excuses. To the kind Jennifer, who took the trouble to read the prologue and then offer to give feedback, I said I still have editing to do (true, but not enough to prevent the acceptance of the offer). To my neighbour, I said that I had already had lots of feedback. To her suggestion of passing it to a teenager she knows – the target audience after all – I said that I didn’t want to put the girl on the spot. Then I changed the subject.

I was doing so much thinking, that my tea went cold. Really, there was that much thinking going on. When I started to admit how much fear had been ruling my actions lately, I started to face my fears about my book, and publishing, and the possibility that my dream will never come true. Then I remembered one of Steve’s posts describing his experience of getting an agent.

Steve talks about receiving forty-eight rejection letters. Forty-eight, before any positives came back. It made me realise that my efforts have been tiny in comparison. And it made me realise that I hadn’t been doing too badly. I sent out a requested full manuscript four times, out of about 14 queries. Maybe that’s a better hit rate than I thought. And I think I’ve solved the problem with the book that caused it to be rejected. Of course I could be wrong, but if I’m not, it’s sitting here next to me, not being out there, because I am too scared to try again.

Since that last post I have railed against the world, I have literally looked up at the ceiling and cried out “WHY WON’T IT HAPPEN FOR ME?!” Today, I realised why.

It won’t happen for me, because of me.

I stopped trying you see. In the last batch I sent it out to agents, one called it ‘extraordinary’, requested the full manuscript, then rejected it after seeming so excited. It destroyed me. 

Today I realised that I was so afraid of feeling that again that I stopped doing everything I could to be published. I withdrew. I didn’t touch the book for weeks, I stopped even thinking about it. I got ill, I got distracted, then it came back to me, this drive to be published got stronger than the fear again. But instead of sending it out, I started to look at self-publishing.

And today I realised that I was doing that out of a place of fear, more than anything else. I believe this is true because I have found excuse after excuse to not move this forwards. Yes, there are other things happening in my life right now, big things, but when I sit with this desire to be published, when I really stop distracting myself and stare at it, I realise I am being a fool. This is what I want. And if this is really everything to me, then why the hell haven’t I been doing more?

I wasn’t as brave as Havi today. I didn’t go deep inside and talk to this fear, but today, I didn’t need to talk to it to realise what it was doing and why. I did negotiate with it though. I explained that I understand what it’s protecting me from and why. I pointed out that things are different now, because I have this blog and I have all of you, who read this, and understand, and make me feel less alone in this mad struggle that is the aspiring author.

I’m not for a moment saying that I turn my back on self-publishing. I don’t, I still think all the things I thought about it before. But I know now that I haven’t exhausted all of the options yet, and when I don’t have the money to self-publish yet anyway, why not keep trying? I’ll save up whilst ticking the list of agents and publishers off.

I came so close to giving up since I wrote the last post. I almost decided that it was better to feel less wretched than to try again and risk hurting that much again. Isn’t this the most important part of the heroic quest though? All those thousands of stories telling us about the moment when the protagonist is almost defeated, almost gives up, but then gets up and tries again. And that’s what makes the protagonist the hero.

And that’s why today, oh today I am my own hero.

I haven’t saved anyone’s life. I haven’t done anything that’s even visible to anyone else. But I’ve battled out of that dark place, I’ve wiped my sword clean and I am ready to carry on again. Only forwards.