The Frustrating Reality of Trying to Make It as an Author

I’ve known I wanted to be an author since I was in my early teens. Initially, writing was my salvation; it helped pull me out of the clutches of an eating disorder and gave me purpose and hope at a time when I felt I had nothing to live for. Writing was something that came naturally to me, and was always with me; even when I was away from my computer, I’d continue to spin stories in my head, to the point where I was often disengaged from the real world. I’d always been a voracious reader, and the older I got, the more I dreamed of creating imaginary worlds into which other unique kids could escape, and feel seen and safe.

I was seventeen when I wrote my first novel, Changing Ways, drawing from my personal experiences with anorexia. After several of months of unsuccessfully querying literary agents, I self-published Changing Ways, as well as the second and third books in the Changing Ways series. Self-publishing was a perfect first step for an aspiring teenage author like myself, one which instilled in me invaluable skills in marketing, public speaking, and self-advocacy. It was both empowering and exhausting, and the venues through which I promoted my books were myriad and diverse: book talks, craft fairs, social media promos, mental health panels, author interviews, chamber of commerce events. The list goes on.

I liked self-publishing because I got to be in complete control of my books and publish on my timeline; on the flip side, it was a lot of work, doing all my own promotion, and my reach, while impressive for an indie author, was small-scale compared to many writers who’d been traditionally published. An agent seemed like the natural next step for me, and so in mid-2021, with my fourth novel nearly completed, I reluctantly revisited the dreaded querying process.

Querying involves writing a “query letter,” or a formal letter which introduces your book, who you are, and why that particular agent should represent you, and sending it out to agents, usually in the accompaniment of sample chapters and/or a synopsis. It’s invariably steeped in rejection; when pitching Changing Ways, I queried over a hundred agents before deciding to self-publish. This second time around, I pitched to about forty before I received interest.

Signing on with an agent was a dream come true. I felt validated, and for the first time in a couple of years, genuinely excited about my future prospects in my chosen career. Like any ambitious twentysomething, I was eager to sign deals and get the ball rolling, so to speak; I had stories that I felt needed to be told, and I couldn’t wait for the world to hear them.

Unfortunately, having an agent doesn’t automatically guarantee publication. You also need an editor, and the process of getting one, as I soon discovered, was eerily reminiscent of what I’d just been through with querying. This time, however, it was my agent who was writing the pitch and sending out my book on submission; my agent who forwarded me the inevitable rejections, which were fewer in number but equally as disheartening.

For two years, we tried to sell a YA book about teen climate advocacy, as well as a nonfictional proposal for an eating disorder recovery-themed cookbook written in conjunction with my mother. And during those two years, as the climate continued to worsen and eating disorder cases skyrocketed, the rejections rolled in, one after another: my project wasn’t “right” for one editor’s list; another editor was already representing a novel with climate themes; I didn’t have a big enough platform; my writing was good but my voice was weak; my book would have worked better in first-person.

It was difficult not to feel dejected; but I was young and had plenty of other ideas, and my writing was improving all the time, the result of spending several hours a day either writing books or reading them. I was growing, not only as a person but as an author, gaining new perspectives from my own lived experiences as well as those which I consumed through literature. More and more, I was understanding the difference between good and great writing, the importance of subtly and showing rather than telling, and how to excel in characterization. I was also revising my own process, taking the time to plot out my books rather than simply diving into a story. In an effort to overcome an OCD behavior, I began to write longhand and discovered a greater creativity and freedom in this old-fashioned approach.

Employing all that I had learned, I set out to write a new novel around this time last year, drawing from another defining aspect of my teenhood: being asexual. Of all the books I’ve written, this is the one that I’m the most proud of, the kind of book I would’ve loved to have had access to in high school, when I was confused and alone with my feelings, lacking the label that would bring clarify to all that I didn’t understand about myself. A friend who read the book, and is also queer, echoed this when he said, “This book should be in every high school library in America.”

The optimism which had been steadily dwindling in the years since I signed on with my agent cautiously returned as she prepared my book to go out on submission. It was a multi-monthly wait, and to distract from my eagerness and anxiety, I turned my attention to a form of writing which I’d previously been reluctant to explore: short stories. This was in part due to the rigid parameters of a lower word count, and in part due to not having the confidence in my writing to pit it against the works of writers two to three times my age.

Now, however, I welcomed the challenge. Short stories became a way to experiment with form and genre, to revisit ideas I’d shelved for being too ambitious or challenging, and to express my fears about climate change and my struggles with young adulthood and chronic illness. Furthermore, having a few published short stories under my belt, I imagined, would make me a more attractive candidate to the editors who would soon be receiving my book.

All winter long, I immersed myself in my short stories, finishing one every two or three weeks and then sending them out to a couple of literary journals at a time, with curbed yet hopeful expectations. By the time my book went out on submission, I had five outstanding short stories whose topics ranged from farm animal sanctuaries to demonic possessions to the future generation grappling with a climate change-ravaged world. Something will take, I thought. It has to. 

It’s been six weeks since then, and in that time two editors have declined to read my book and three more have passed; I’ve also received half a dozen rejections on my short stories, including one this morning that was particularly hard to swallow. Although it’s still early in the submission process, I can already feel my hope slipping away like sand through my fingers and my mind latching on to the worst-case scenarios: that my book won’t get picked up, that I’ll have to self-publish again, that I’ll never be able to traditionally publish a book in this current market, never be able to effect change through my writing and make it in this profession that I’ve dedicated the last decade of my life to.

Enduring the inherently finicky traditional publishing industry requires thick skin, something I’ve always possessed; but the decline in my health over the last several months has depleted me mentally, physically, and emotionally, making the rejections more difficult to withstand than in the past. I feel fragile and defeated, in need of a win in my life; simultaneously, I feel frustrated with the industry and anxious about the direction the world is headed in, and what it means for the future of literature and writing — will there even be a place for serious writers like myself, who write not be rich or Instagram-famous or to compete with robots but simply because we love the art of storytelling, because writing is part of who we are?

I don’t know the answers to these questions or what the future holds for myself or my beloved craft. At present, I feel like I’m in limbo, waiting for my career to take off or at least gain some semblance of momentum, all the while fending off the recurrent fear that it never will. Years ago when I was writing Changing Ways, I was told that to make it as a writer you need three things: talent, determination, and luck. I know I have the first two. I’m holding out hope that the third will come along some day soon.