The Long Road
So, I’ve finally finished my memoir.
After fifteen years and five-plus drafts, I’ve gotten the book to a place that feels done, and finally, finally, worked up my courage to send it out; only to discover that finding a home for it could be just as long and arduous a road as writing the damn thing. So far, of the eight agents I’ve sent it to (including my former agent) three have basically said the same thing: the writing is “gorgeous,” the story well-crafted, the plot engaging… They all read it in a day or two and praised it effusively—then admitted they had no idea how to place a quiet coming-of-age literary memoir by a writer with no real platform in today’s market—which is governed by high-concepts and edgy pitches and big names and sure bets. Everyone is panicking over their bottom line, everyone looking for the next fresh, flashy, faddy goldmine.
My friend A says that the really good writing always finds its way into the world, though I don’t know if this is true anymore. My friend J says I’m not allowed to feel defeated until I’ve sent it to forty agents and twenty small presses; but I’m not sure I have the endurance—or the heart—for so much rejection. My friend E says I should set it aside and focus on my novel. My friend M says I should do what she did, and go for a hybrid publisher; but I don’t have the 40 or 60K to shell out. My therapist says maybe it’s for the best right now, since publication would have opened a huge can of worms with my family. (She’s got a point).
So, what I’ve decided is this: to take the farsighted view, the long road, the slow and measured road. To keep working on my novel. To query in small batches of four or five, consistently, every six to eight weeks, over the next year or two—or four—because god knows I’m not in a hurry to face what publication might mean, given my last experience. And if, after all that, the book lands somewhere, great! And if it doesn’t, then by the time I’m ready to admit defeat, I’ll either be dead or won’t care anymore—or maybe I’ll have another book to offer.
And beneath all that planning and ambition and resignation and defeat, a smaller, consistently wiser voice keeps popping up, reminding me that the greatest rewards really are in the writing itself; that the process truly is worth the effort, no matter the outcome. This is what I preach to my students and writer friends. And it’s what I believe—really: that even if the things we write never “see the light of day,” they were absolutely worth writing for all that they have taught us and brought us. Brenda Ueland says no work that engages the mind, the heart or the imagination is ever a waste. We have grown from it. We have discovered.
Still, isn’t it natural to want your labor of love to find its audience?
For this reason, I’m forever grateful to our writing community—to the dozens of writers who write in my workshops and attend our readings to listen, to honor, to share, to applaud. The writers who consistently show up for themselves and for each other, coming to the page unsure if their work will ever reach a wider audience, but valuing the unfathomably rich process of discovering and crafting, witnessing, holding, and reacting in a heartfelt way to each other’s stories, which is huge. Which is maybe the best thing. We are each other’s audience, and I can say with confidence that I carry inside me the stories of everyone I’ve heard read in my workshops over the past thirty years. Those stories have shaped me, haunted me, guided me and enriched my life beyond measure, whether or not they lived between the covers of a published book.
So if you’re out there writing—querying, revising, doubting, or starting over—I hope you’ll keep going. Keep showing up to the page. Keep sharing your work, even when the path forward feels arduous or uncertain. And if you need a place to be witnessed and encouraged along the way, our community is here. We would be honored to hear your story.
