Erin Lodes

Of course, this novel that already brought me to the very pits of my emotional broken nonsense, would do it again during the query process.

I thought I was fucking ready, you know? I’d read all the things about not giving up and how it takes time. I’d read all the things about how many times famous authors were rejected and all the things about how solid non-famous, mid-list, career-having writers were also rejected a lot and all the things from debut authors about how many rejections they slogged through. I had a spreadsheet and a list and a method. I was working on my next book.

I had all the walls in place to protect myself. None of them worked.

Hopelessness found me.

It found me after my very first query getting a partial request and the ultimate form rejection that came from that. It found me after the twenty form rejections that followed. It found me in the midst of working on my next novel. It found me after I got off the high of the hamster wheel of revising a manuscript no one had actually read yet.

It found me. And it pulled me down.

For weeks I barely poked at my new novel with a stick. I didn’t write any blog posts. I had to cancel a coaching session with John because I couldn’t bear to hold my face into some semblance of composure for a single fucking hour after holding it in place all day at work.

Because after everything, I had to finally admit to myself that it’s largely out of my hands now. I am doing everything I can to accomplish this hold-my-breath-because-I-can’t-even-bear-the-weight-of-it impossible dream of me being published. And at some point—this fucking point—I can’t work any harder. I can’t get up any earlier. I can’t sacrifice any more lunch hours. I can’t rake myself and my prose over the coals anymore. Because I’ve already done all that. My book is done. And my book is good.

And now I just have to wait. I have to wait and I have to keep absorbing the blow of each rejection and the only thing I can do is not give up.

And gradually, very fucking gradually, I’m pulling myself back up.

I’m definitely not giving up. And hopefully someday I will look back on this blog post and all the others like it and be like—look how fucking far I’ve come.

But right now? Right now it sucks. It just does.

How I Published My Novel is going to be an ongoing blog series detailing how I get this freaking thing published. I know, I know, you could probably tell that from the title… I’ve gotten to this point (and am still getting help from) the amazing John Adamus, who is my writing coach.

If you haven’t already, check out Part One of How I Finished My Novel, and start from the beginning of this story.