An Author, Not a Writer
Or, how I learned writing a good story is only half the battle
I’ve been writing for over ten years. It started as hardly more than squirreling away in the college library at SUNY Binghamton. I’d find a window of time, usually when I was meant to get to class, hole up in some corner with my back to the wall, and vomit up bad writing. Don’t believe me? My first story was about a teenaged emo angel boy who went to an angel orgy where everyone was licking each other’s wings. Told you.
But with the surety of youth, I charged ahead, finishing that story. Editing that story. Showing it to my girlfriend (now wife, God bless her). Eventually I joined a writing group and learned that no, Jeremy, reading about angels getting mouthfuls of feathers wasn’t sexy or even edgy. It was just awkward.
It took two rewrites and as many years to finish that first novel. By the time I finished, the orgy was out and a literary agent had been found. Tropes were replaced with nuance. My adverb usage was tamed. We sent it out to publishers, and not just the indie ones either. We’re talking Schuster. Random House. Tor – friggin Tor! My heart lifted even as my stomach dropped, because I had made it. I wasn’t just a writer. I was an author.
Tor’s rejection was the hardest. They didn’t send a reply at all. At least some of the others had offered the courtesy of closure. Some.
I’ll spare you the grinding of the next decade. Stories were written, edited, rejected, repeat. Life happened along the way. I got a big boy job teaching. I got married. Had two kids. And all the while I kept writing, until finally a publisher wrote back those magic words: “Tell us more.” BAM. Sanhedrin Chronicles, my debut novel, out 11.19.24. Hebrew mysticism meets the streets of New York. Jewish fantasy, baby – hardly ever done before, and even when it had been, those stories weren’t like mine. This thing would market itself. The hard part was over. Oh, publisher! Chop, chop! Go…*gestures vaguely* wave your publishing wand and get me those sales. I’m an author, don’t you know?
Earlier I said I had the “surety of youth.” Is it still naive surety if you’re in your thirties?
Needless to say, unless you’re King or Coates or Kuang and the like, there is no “publisher wand.” In fact, for the vast majority of authors, there’s no real “publisher marketing campaign” or “publisher network” or even “publisher communication.” There’s just the printing machine they own, and a cover you pray comes out pretty. The rest…well, you’ve just got to figure it out.
For ten years I lived on the island of my writing, convincing myself that when it came time to return to the continent of the market, I’d be trumpeted for this story I’d made. That my dedication to it would absolve me of all my isolation and eccentricities and lapses, and that the work would, as if by decree, find its way to the masses. But the only pronouncement we get is the one of our own making. So that’s what I’ve been doing, one post at a time, one like at a time, one follower, one reel, one review (speaking of which, an Amazon review would go a long way). Writing emails, answering emails, sliding into DMs and checking my phone at 2:37 AM desperately praying a simple invitation to chat was accepted.
It’s funny, though. Through every shameless plug and nail-bite-inducing email, I’ve never felt more like an author.
A few odds and ends:
I mentioned it before, but a review on Amazon really does go a long way. For whatever reason, reviews help drive the site’s algorithm and promote your work on other pages. If you can, dropping a few lines here (click) would mean the world.
Tomorrow, Nov 26th from 10AM to 3PM EST, I will be live on the fantasy Reddit for my first AMA (Ask Me Anything). For anyone new to an AMA, it’s basically a Q&A on a digital forum, where I’ll be responding to questions posted to me throughout the day. Feel free to come and post a question here (click)!
With excitement and gratitude,
JS
