Walking the Ridgepole: Striking a Balance while Querying
When I was a kid, I cherished a bootleg copy of Her Majesty the Queen of Angst, Megan Follows, starring in her epic role as Anne of Green Gables.
Ten-year-old me was completely conflicted between idolizing both Anne and Gilbert, so naturally, I watched the tension riddled ridgepole scene over and over until the VHS wore out. Her fierce competitive spirit and desire to prove herself resounded so strongly with me, and even though I knew she would topple off the roof, I always held my breath, hoping (for the sake of our collective pride) that she wouldn’t. I wanted her to triumph. But I needed to see how her dear ones enveloped her in celebration and love when her ambition produced mixed results.
Trying to get started as a writer can feel a lot like that. On the one hand, Diana Barry (your one precious life) is pleading with you to keep your feet in the real world. On the other hand, Josie Pye is clawing at Gilbert’s annoyingly sturdy-looking arm and you’re a tornado of ambitious indignant feelings you don’t understand yet (make of that wordy metaphor what you will.)
Here’s what I learned from my own experiences querying, revising, and in my debut year thus far, which I offer humbly in the hope it lends you a little solace in your journey:
Thing One: Connection is important. Years ago (several attempts before my debut), I briefly entertained the notion of insulating myself and producing a creative work untainted by the influence of others, producing something truly unique.
<crickets>
It’s probably no shock that the results were hilarious and appalling. Someday, I’ll share lines from this groundbreaking work, for our mutual amusement. (Life lesson: There is nothing new under the sun, and our little mortal lives are too short to reinvent the wheel. What humanity does have going for it, though, are shared experiences and cumulative skill wisdom, which are a crime to not take advantage of!)
After this realization, I had to face my root worry: I felt I didn’t have enough time to read. Which meant I had to peel back the assumption that “real” reading meant curling up with a hardback on the couch with a stalwart attention span, during the free time I didn’t have. It was a bad belief onion layer situation, and there were tears.
At that point, I was drowning in small children, cheerio baggies, and diapers. Audiobooks became my lifeline. I listened in the shower, while I did laundry, in the car, and while I battled insomnia. I stopped suffering through novels that didn’t speak to me. And writing suddenly started to flow again, and my own voice germinated from the many.
My second lifeline became small critique groups and mutuals online who were at similar points in their querying journey. It helped immensely to know that other writers that I admired and cherished were struggling with similar issues as me. Some growing pains aren’t unique, and normalizing common struggles continues to help me detach from my pride a bit and gain perspective.
I had precious few schedule cracks to jam writing and reading time into, but when they presented themselves, I learned to notice them and take advantage of them. Eventually, I knocked entire items off my schedule and carved time for them.
Thing Two: I can’t bargain my way into a good manuscript.
So, this is the paradoxical counterbalance to connectivity: if you lean too hard into the writing community, it can take on its own expansive life and eventually edge you out of, well, writing.
Besides the normal pitfalls of comparing one book’s rough draft with others’ final product, I found it could be easy to feel that talking about being a writer was getting me closer to having a novel that might snag an agent’s eye. Ha! , you laugh. I would never! But listen, twenty rejections in, your mind starts playing tricks on you, and superstitious bargaining behavior creeps up on you like a pair of bad underwear. It’s a whole brutal thing.
Remember the first day of middle school? Everyone’s moody and nursing insecurities, and you’re studying the intricate social mores and folkways of your peers like an anxious hawk to figure out how to blend in (in a good way) and stand out (in a good way). It’s an odd hybrid of elementary school (follow the rules!) and high school (individuate!).
Being a new writer is similar. There’s a lot of imitation going on, and a lot of experimentation to see what serves you and doesn’t. A friend on Instagram commissions artwork for their WIP; another person live-tweets their flights to conferences and pitches their book exclusively in person. A late-night panic google produces articles about elevator pitches, hashtag games, newsletters, viral tweets, retreats, writing clubs, merch, making 856 writer acquaintances, vlogs, podcasts, blogs…
And it can all seem like a little much, especially if it all seems necessary. (Fellow writer, you have ALL my empathy. I’ve cried quarts over this very thing.) Eventually, I was incredibly relieved to realize that none of the extras are crucial to writing a novel.
The only non-negotiables are the following:
Honing your craft, implementing good feedback, and (of course) writing.
Maintaining a kind and respectful attitude toward others.
Being willing to try again. And again.
That’s it. Those are the things.
That’s not to say none of the trappings of the writing community are useful! But your book doesn’t need them. Your book needs you. So when you’re considering (perhaps frantically) what to participate in, it’s helpful to get clear on what serves you personally and brings you joy.
Social people might gravitate toward lots of conventions because it gives them energy (which helps them write their book). Or you might be challenging yourself to build some plot conversation chops, and retreats help you practice! Strategically identifying what serves you is like the 8th-grade realization that parting your hair down the middle is never going to work for your enthusiastic cowlicks. (Not that I ever served the world a mangled Posh Spice hair part. :cough:)
Ultimately, our wellbeing is what matters. Which dovetails nicely with:
Thing Three: I need a life beyond writing.
One of my (many) obsessions is cultural lore. And one of my favorite snippets is a 7th-century Irish poem called the ‘Cauldron of Poesy.’ Bear with me; there’s a related point.
There’s a notion that all humans are born with three energy centers, or brewing cauldrons, inside them: the first in the pelvis (upright at birth), the second in the gut (tipped sideways at birth and turned slowly through joy and sorrow), and the third (in the head, upside down at birth and only inverted through wisdom gained from contemplating the contents of the second). The rare people with all three cauldrons firing are supposedly master poets and bubbling with inspiration.
I love this mental picture with every atom of my being. Not only is it totally in line with common wisdom like “All work and no play…”, but it’s basically an invitation or a dare. “So you think you want to tell stories? First, you have to live one.” It reminds me that my baseline worth is as a human being, not a human doing, and that the point of life is living it. Writing can be part of that living, but it’s not the sum total of it.
I get to have relationships that don’t revolve around writing (or propping up my writer's image). I can do things that feed my soul and marrow, that remind me of my own wildness. I can collect and curate ideas and observations and sorrows and devastating blows that serve no purpose at all other than to remind me that I’m participating in the human experience. Not everything has to be a grind. Not everything needs a higher purpose. Living is its own terrible miracle.
Paradoxically, this experiencing also tends to make me a better writer. (Go figure.) It’s almost like the Universe wants us to be healthy and balanced or something. Rude.