Being On Submission (i.e. Waiting for the Rain)

Do you know that moment just before a big rainstorm, when the clouds are pregnant with rain and you can feel the heaviness in the air, but not a single drop of water has broken free? That anticipation, that knowing, that feeling that something is about to shift and change and suddenly the quiet stillness will give birth to something new? That's what it feels like to be on submission.

I wanted to blog about it because it's an important piece of the writing journey, one every writer certainly aspires to. I am blessed to have found such an amazing agent, and even more blessed that he has a really good eye for knowing what editors might really connect to this story. And so here I am, at the next rest stop, once again waiting, having faith, making prayers, and trying to quell the butterflies that are perpetually dancing in my stomach.

You see, the waiting game does not end when you get an agent. Far from it. Though that process alone can take anywhere from several weeks to several years, once you obtain representation, you may have to perform rewrites before your book gets sent out. And then, if it gets sent out to a few editors and they like it but have a few concerns and are kind enough to detail them, you may have to revise yet again to address those concerns in the hopes that they will be willing to revisit it. This part alone can take months.

Once an editor receives your book, if they like it, generally they have to take it to whomever is above them and win their approval too, and then ultimately, the book would move on to acquisitions, where that team also has to fall in love with it and stand behind it. Again, this process too can take anywhere from weeks to months.

There are far more agents than there are editors, so when you go out on submission you are going to a much smaller pool of people. This is quite daunting, because you only have so many chances for someone to fall in love with your work before you might need to put it aside. The good news is that editors do change houses, so what you are forced to put aside now may indeed be saleable somewhere down the line to fresh eyes, but ideally, we all want to sell our book NOW, right?

So right now I'm sitting here, waiting for the rain. My sky is absolutely pregnant with possibility, and I have no doubt the rain will come. The question is when, and what force will this storm bring? It's an exciting moment to be sitting this close to the threshold of seeing a lifetime dream become reality. There's something magical in soaking up the palpable essence of the moment that potentially divides those two things.

The Art of Letting Go

There is a famous quote by Reinhold Niebuhr that I try and live by daily. I'm sure you've heard it before: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

The agent search/publishing process falls neatly into the category of things we cannot change, nor have any real control over. Yes, we can tweak our query, revise our story, select who to approach, but the rest is all really up to the universe/fate/whatever. We can light candles, say prayers, do rain dances, and all sorts of other craziness (and, really, it probably can't hurt,) but at the end of the day, we can only do so much, and then it's simply time to let go.

Letting go of your work is probably the hardest challenge of all in the writing process. It's akin to the feeling you get in your gut as a parent when your child grows up and goes off to college or gets married and starts his/her own life. What happens to them from that point forward is out of your hands. So it is with your book. When you've done all you can do, and that book is in the hands of that agent, or that agent has sent that book out on submission, all you can do is wait. Nudging and pushing to find out the answer will more likely get you a no than a yes, and if it is meant to be, it WILL happen. And if it's not . . . it won't. It's that simple. Hard as it is to embrace that concept, it is essential in order to move forward as a writer. If you continue to focus solely on the project you are querying or are on submission with, you will never get to the task of writing your next book. Chances are, as your self-confidence naturally wavers and ebbs with the waiting and inevitable rejections that come, you will be less focused and less inclined to press ahead with new ideas.

The best thing you can do is to accept that whatever happens will happen, and start writing. Lose yourself in a new work, new characters, new world building. Use this time to catch up on reading and take workshops to hone your craft and meet people. These are all productive distractions, and ultimately, when that agent call comes, or that publisher wants to buy your book, you can let them know you are busy at work writing something else, or even better, have another completed work to share.

Checking your email 100 times a day and waiting by the phone will only make you crazy and unproductive. Accept the process, accept what you can do and know you've done all you can, and then let go. That's when stuff happens anyway, right? Just when we've given up, put it aside, and moved forward. Just as a watched pot never boils, it is no different with this process.