Food Frustrations and Query Preparations

I sometimes feel as if I’m destined to always have a dysfunctional relationship with food.

Granted, growing up my relationship with food was pretty typical–and there was a period in my early twenties, shortly after I went vegan, when I genuinely enjoyed food and reaped the benefits of a nourished body and mind. But I don’t really remember the former, and the latter lasted so briefly that, in the scheme of things, it seems like a mere drop in the ocean, a fleeting taste of what could have been–and what I now fear will never again be. I’m hopeful that time will prove otherwise; however, in the indefinite interim, food is about as “fun” as it was during my long-ago days in eating disorder treatment facilities.

Earlier in the summer, I wrote about the challenges of gaining weight with gastroparesis and of feeling like I’m caught in a catch-22 situation: I need to eat more to feel better in the long-term, but eating more makes me feel substantially worse. This is still very much the case, though lately, as months of being in a slight calorie deficit have begun to catch up with me, bringing about symptoms of hair loss, freezing extremities, and poor concentration, to name a few, restoration has become all the more urgent.

I’m working with a new dietitian, who has experience with my conditions and proposed that for the next two weeks, I allow my parents to plate my meals–identical to their own hearty portions–and continue to supplement with calorie-dense snacks and drinks. She’s assured me that, while I’ll initially experience significant discomfort, by the end of the trial, I should notice a reduction in my symptoms as my GI system adapts to a more normal amount of food. Although I’m admittedly skeptical–and a bit scared–I’m also eager to feel better and thus willing to give it a try.

There is so much more I want to do with my life than I’m presently able, in large part due to being undernourished. And while I don’t expect that gaining fifteen pounds will magically solve all my problems, it will, at the very least, enable me to lead a fuller and more joyful existence; after all, it’s difficult to feel much enthusiasm or joy when simply engaging with the world around me uses up most of my energy.

Having said that, I don’t want to paint the impression that my current life is entirely without joy; on the contrary, there are many things in which I regularly find enjoyment: literature, wildlife, interactions with my family and–less frequently–members of our new community, Wingspan, ’80s and ’90s alternative-rock. So too is there excitement in my quiet life, specifically related to my writing projects (though I look forward to when I’ll have the energy to write for more than a measly two or three hours a day!).

In mid-July, I made the difficult decision to part ways with my literary agent, after months of privately doubting that she was the best person to represent me. As I’ll now need to find new representation, I’ve spent all of August preparing to go out on submission: revising my manuscript–tightening the prose; changing the POV from third to first–as well as composing a query letter and synopsis and combing the internet for agents who are better suited for the kinds of books I write. (That my former agent didn’t represent my genre–realistic, character-driven YA–was the primary impetus for terminating our relationship; inconsistent, unclear communication and a repeated failure to meet deadlines were some of the other factors that influenced my decision.)

Although I feel confident that this was the right choice–for my career as well as my sanity–the prospect of once again enduring the infamously grueling querying process is extremely daunting. Memories of form rejections filling my inbox, of getting my hopes up from a partial or full request only to be ghosted, of a once-exhaustive list of names gradually being whittled down to a handful of last-ditch options, have niggled at the back of mind as I’ve readied my first round to go out next week.

Yet as real and valid as these fears are–finding an agent is no walk in the park–the writer I am today is much different than the writer I was the last time I queried, almost four years ago. Back then, I was still developing my style and voice–and regularly mimicking those of the authors who I then admired–and had a much weaker command of language and characterization. Nor, for that matter, did I have any experience working with an agent; I didn’t know what I needed from a business partner and naively assumed that any only agent would do, regardless of whether or not we were compatible.

Of course, the knowledge and experience I’ve acquired over the last few years don’t guarantee that I’ll have any more luck securing representation this time than I did in the past–and I fully expect that the coming months will be an emotional rollercoaster as I navigate not only my erratic health issues but also the fickle traditional publishing industry. Fortunately, if there’s one trait I’ve always possessed, it’s tenacity; I’m in this for the long-haul, and no amount of rejection nor adversity will dissuade me from doing what I can to bring my dream to fruition.