Should I wait to write this?

It’s easier to admit failure through the lens of success. I dropped out of college—then built a multimillion-dollar business! Here are all the rejection letters for my book—which went on to be a bestseller! In recent years, our culture has embraced the sharing of struggles as a facet of authenticity. But often, that vulnerability is couched against something more positive so as to preserve the sharer’s reputation. If I wait another year or two to tell this story, I may have more successes of my own and be able to pin on a happy ending.

But I want to talk about this now, while it’s fresh, for all the other writers (and non-writers) out there who are in some sort of valley and only hear people proclaiming their stories from the mountaintops.

Recently, my agent dropped me. It wasn’t a surprise. My contacts at the agency had generally been hands-off since the release of my first book, and declined to negotiate the contract for a film script I sold on my own to a studio. Still, the news stung. Since the agency is in London, I found out first thing in the morning when I checked my phone. I questioned afterwards in the shower why I do any of this. Would I ever write anything publishable again?

My experience with my first novel, The Plus One, began as the fairy tale for new writers. I had never attempted a novel before and knew nothing about writing fiction except what I had absorbed over the years from reading it. All my writer friends at the time were screenwriters, and asking any of them to read a WHOLE. ENTIRE. BOOK. would have been a bit much, so I began the query process with a rough manuscript upon which no one other than myself had ever laid eyes. (Alert to querying writers—please don’t do this!) But something about the premise and the writing must have sparked interest, because I quickly began receiving full manuscript requests and, within a couple of months, signed with an agent at one of the biggest and most prestigious agencies in the world. When the book went out on submission, an editor at Putnam picked it up for a sizeable sum. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. After years spent working in the entertainment industry, where it’s so rare for things to actually get made, I couldn’t believe this book was truly going to be published. It was too easy.

My lack of publishing experience meant that I didn’t get basic things about the industry, like: once you publish one book, you’re expected to publish the same kind of thing again and again. And it’s up to the publisher to determine what kind of book yours is. My novel was genre-bending, without one obvious placement. I found out months after the fact that the publisher was positioning the book, for economic reasons, in a genre that I didn’t read and had never intended to write, and that I was now expected to write in that genre going forward.

I wrote two new books attempting to fit that genre, but neither will probably ever leave my computer, and I’m okay with that. I’ve accepted that I’m not cut out to write for that audience. My newest novel is more of a passion project. It’s a story of early motherhood, and I taught myself to type one-handed so I could pound out a draft in the postpartum months while holding my infant daughter, capturing the experiences in their rawest form. I wrote the story I wanted to write the way I wanted to write it, and I’m still figuring out what genre to call it. But I know that publishing it traditionally will be an uphill battle. The downside of a large advance is the book has to sell well just for the publisher to break even, and since my first novel didn’t have a strong enough sales record, my editor declined to pick up another book, which meant my agent declined to explore other avenues for it, or to work with me further.

I don’t blame either my agent or editor for these decisions. I’m grateful to them both for shepherding my first novel into the world. They’re smart women who are good at their jobs, and they each have a responsibility to their respective employers to support books and authors they think will enhance the bottom line. It’s a reality of the competitive marketplace we’re in. I don’t know yet if I’ll query agents and try traditional publishing again. Probably, but the creative control of independent publishing is attractive, and I’m considering that route as well.

But I do know one thing. I may be in a valley now—but I will write my way out.

The day I learned that my agent wanted to officially part ways, my daughter slept in. That meant, after my mopey shower, I had an unexpected hour to myself. I was tempted to go back to bed and catch up on sleep or nurse my wounds with doomscrolling. But more than either of those things, I wanted to write. Knowing there are easy reasons for people to deny this book, I wanted to make it undeniable.

Other projects have kept me busy over the last few months, so I’ve had less time for writing than usual. If I’m not writing every day, I start to feel an itch. That morning, I ignored the other tasks in the queue, took my laptop to my writing chair, and wrote.

And it made everything better.

I came up with a plan for some revisions I’d been noodling in the back of my head, and, by the time I heard my daughter’s first cries, I was already making headway. Regardless of what happened in the outside world, my book was in better shape by the end of the day than it was at the beginning. So that, for me, was a good day.

I’m more apprehensive about my career now than when I blithely sent my first unpolished manuscript out to agents. I’ve learned the sting of a rejection or a bad review. But I also think—goodness, I hope—that I’m a better writer today than I was then. In addition to the three other novels I’ve written since The Plus One, I’ve written numerous short stories, poems, and pilot and feature screenplays, and co-written a novella. Not to mention the many ideas that floundered at various stages of completion, but still taught me something along the way. Perhaps I’ve picked up some baggage on this trip, but I’ve also learned a lot about my craft and my business, and really, shouldn’t that be the first goal—maybe even goals one through ten—on the list? To become a better writer, one day at a time?

I often tell myself and other writers to find the reward in the work itself, because everything else—what gets published and what doesn’t, how many copies you sell, how readers respond—is out of your hands. If every form of financial renumeration and outward validation is stripped away and you no longer want to write, then you shouldn’t be writing. In this season of life, I feel like I’m being tested to honor my own words. It’s harder to write right now, without having published or sold anything in a while, and without a visible next step. But every time I get my butt in the chair to work, or grab a notebook and scribble a thought while on mom duty, I’m reminded of the quiet joy of creativity. The end product is something I want to share with the world, but those moments when I get to watch an idea take form from the darkness—those are just for me. That’s why, no matter what happens in my career, I’ll keep writing until the day I die*.

To all walking this journey with me, thank you. The next time I’m on the mountaintop, I’ll be sure to sing it out.

*Or until Elon Musk plants a chip in my brain that changes my personality, or something.