Discarded Beginnings: My Journey to Publication

1. My Struggle With Perfectionism

Here is a glimpse into the tortured psyche of a chronic rewriter. 

My first two novels were rejected by many literary agents and publishers, and since I had epic plans for one of them, the rejections led me down a spiral of second-guesses and feverish revisions.  Most writers are sane enough to move on and write new novels, or else give up on writing.  Not me. 

I grew up as an over-achiever (3.98 GPA, full ride scholarship, student films screened in international film festivals). I strove to excel. If I wasn't outstanding, if I didn't win contests, then I wasn't trying hard enough. In fact, I grew up believing that I would be famous and successful as an adult. How could I not be? It seemed like destiny. 

With that attitude, I was sure that becoming a mega-best-selling author would be a piece of cake.  

And I had a childhood experience which actually confirmed that delusional belief.  When I was 12, I wrote two novels, one of which got sent to Random House. They had no idea I was a child.  At the age of 13, I was in New York City and got a call from the editor at Random House, asking me to come to her office.  When I showed up, she gaped at me and said, "Oh, crap." 

After that, she tried to cushion the scathing rejection she'd written. Her rejection included the term "it sounds like a mentally retarded person wrote this." She explained that she never would have written such a review if she'd known I was a child, and she offered to work with me, hinting that the child author angle could work really well in the marketing department.

But I was already devastated, and refused to work with her.  I quit writing until I was in college. Only then, as an adult, did I regret turning down the Random House offer.  But I assumed that I'd easily get another offer.  After all, I was mature, and people were finally taking me seriously! Right? 

My first major novel rejections (as an adult) didn't bother me, since I knew I was a newbie, and I was eager to learn.  I attended the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2004, taught by Jeanne Cavelos, a retired Del Rey editor.  That year, the instructors included Barry B. Longyear, Catherine Asaro, and George R.R. Martin.  I was in fangirl heaven, and I learned a metric ton of useful knowledge on the craft of storytelling and writing. 

In 2005, I trunked my short 60,000 word novel (that means I retired the draft), and I turned my full focus to the monstrous 520,000 word tome I'd written shortly after college.  I hacked it into two novels, and then edited and edited and edited. 

Beta readers loved the results.  I got emails from readers from as far away as Norway and New Zealand, and they said they loved it and wanted the sequels.  My coworker stayed up all night reading.  A student missed classwork because he was reading my novels under his desk in school. 

Happy, I queried literary agents.  I expected good results, but I got nothing at all.  Few of them responded.  Those who did sent form letter rejections. 

And so my long struggle began. 

I gave my novels another huge rewrite in 2007.  Then another in 2009.  Frustrated, I went ahead and wrote three sequels (in 2010, 2012, and 2014), and sent those books to delighted beta readers.  I networked.  I sold short fiction to pro markets like Escape Pod and Fantastic Stories of the Imagination.  But that wasn't good enough.  My lifelong dream was to have novels published by Tor or Daw or Orbit. 

So I kept rewriting the beginning of Book 1, which seemed to be my one and only obstacle.  Literary agents and acquisitions editors simply weren't reading beyond the first chapter. 

I wrote a new first chapter.  And another new one.  And another.   Whenever a new beginning seemed to work well for beta readers, I'd do the whole query letter thing.  I pitched at writer conferences.  

Nothing but rejections.

Over the years, I must have discarded over 100 first chapters.  The amount of discarded material equates to more than 1,000,000 words, or several thick novels.

Why didn't I self-publish, you ask?  

Oh, I should have.  I should have self-published in 2009, before the indie gold rush.  I knew it even then.  Not having done so is the biggest regret of my life. 

The reason why I remained stubbornly fixated on traditional publication (until 2015) was because I refused to fail.  Failure was unacceptable to me.  I was too much of an overachiever.

Besides, I had already invested a monstrous amount of my personal time and effort into Book 1, more than any sane person would invest.  I simply refused to accept that I was failing.  Talent + Hard Work + Persistence = has to equal Success, right? 

I spent my childhood and my twenties believing that.  But I was wrong.  Talent, hard work, and persistence are necessary ingredients for success, but there are other factors, too.  Like luck.  And a few other things, specific to my situation.  I'll analyze those in the next part.

Thanks for reading.