The Pursuit of Publication

"A Writer?"

I've wanted to be a writer for most of my life.

When my 2nd grade teacher entered something I had written into a regional writing contest, I won. So when a friend of my parents asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I admitted for the first time, "A writer!"

He laughed at me. Like I had said something as unlikely and as impractical as declaring I wanted to be a movie star. After that, I forgot such dreams, though I continued to worship at the altar of Madeleine L'Engle, reading every one of her numerous novels I could get my hands on. On top of that, my three siblings were 15 to 7 years older than me. Their libraries became my feeding ground. In fourth grade, I read J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, and proceeded to read about a book a night. Over the years, the fact that I filled journal after journal with my own scribbles meant little to me, just as I took for granted the wallpaper in the background or the armchair in the corner.

When I was 17, I had the opportunity to work privately with a successful novelist, the writer-in-residence at my high school. During our weekly meetings, he would encourage me: "Perhaps this is what you should do for your life - write professionally." Just as I thought nothing of the books I consumed or notebooks I filled, I ignored what he said. He might as well have been speaking another language. I thought authors had to have two initials for a first name, or at least have a sophisticated British accent like his and that every other sentence an author spoke would unconsciously be sprinkled with metaphors to the sun setting or the moon rising. I did not think writing had anything to do with a mere mortal and a name like "Grace Uriarte."

Nonetheless, all his words - though they were riddles to me - continued to echo through my mind. "A writer has nothing to do with whether or not you choose to make the door red or blue," (imagine in an eloquent, British accent), "it has to do with the processes of the mind." I had no idea what he was talking about. How were my processes any different than any one else's? Still, all his words from my apprenticeship with him pursued me. Over the years, I found myself watching each person, trying to understand their "processes," trying to understand what a "processes" was, and what made me different than them - why had he decided that I was "a writer?" I began to see some differences - for one, the very fact that I was watching them. I realized he had been trying to tell me that a writer is born an observer, a watcher of people, settings, details, culture - that's what provides the content, the words that overflow onto paper.

My fiction teacher had said his mind was like a double-screen. One on which he saw what was happening before him, and the other on which he saw all of that translated into scenes for a novel. I realized a double-screen was happening for me as well. One on which I saw what was before my eyes and the other on which I translated it into the different parts of the narrative. Only, it wasn't fiction. Real people seemed like the most intriguing characters. I found literary things happened every day. It was just a matter of highlighting the significant, editing out the insignificant that would distract from the true meaning of the event, and knowing where it landed on the timeline of the narrative, whether it was foreshadowing, the story's complication, or the climax. Sometimes, even the real-life setting and the weather seemed to conveniently reflect the event's meaning. If something terribly sad was happening, it was raining outside, and the storm would escalate according to the sorrow. I didn't need to change the setting or weather for the sake of the story. It really happened that way in real life.

Finally, Christmas break my sophomore year in college, when I was 19, I read a novel by Elizabeth Prentiss, author of the 19th century hymn "More Love to Thee." The book was called Stepping Heavenward, a fictional journal of a young woman. As a teenager, she is self-absorbed, shallow, and you are not convinced she is a Christian. Many readers at this point stop reading, as she is kind of annoying. Yet as her entries progress through the years, you see God continuing to grow her more and more into His image. The godly people she describes that are in her life, such as her mother and pastor, disciple you through their example and their letters she copies into her journal. Wow! I thought. One can glorify God through fiction! I could not put the book down until I finished it, barely sleeping those three days. That book changed my life. And after that, when another one of my fiction teacher's lines echoed through my mind, I cried out, "All right already! I'll be a writer!" And then, all of a sudden, his words stopped echoing.

In college, call it idealistic, but rather than a stepping stone to a high-paying job, I saw my education as an end in itself. I loved learning. I saw my education as a gift from God. A limited period in my life when not only was it allowed to be my top priority, but my parents expected it to be my top priority. More than that, my calling at the time was to be a student. And if I wanted to glorify God, I needed to work at it with all my heart. I fell in love with my history and political theory classes. Exhilarated by seeing God's sovereign hand as He wrote His Story of the world. My old fiction teacher had always said that one did not have to major in English in order to be a writer. So I majored in history and minored in political theory.

After I graduated from UCLA, I was accepted into a graduate writing program at the University of Southern California (USC), but I deferred a year. During that year, so much changed - most of all, I began dating Andrew. And so when I finally did start the writing program, two weeks into my first semester at USC, Andrew asked me to marry him. At the end of my first semester in graduate school, Andrew completed his last semester at UCLA, we got married, and Motorola moved us to Washington.

How Will I Ever Write Again?

We spent the first three months of our marriage travelling and living out of a suitcase - I loved it! And instead of writing, Andrew's ear became my notebook. Then, two weeks after we settled into Washington, I found out I was pregnant. I was so sick during that pregnancy, I could barely walk down the hall. For the first time in my life, I could not write a thing in my notebooks. For the first time in my life, I had writer's block. I wondered at that time what the Lord had in store with writing. Andrew and I hoped to have many children. Yet, even if the writer's block ever ended, how would I write if I was constantly sick with pregnancy and caring for children?

During that pregnancy, I volunteered at the local art gallery in town. One day, I was assigned to watch the desk with a local artist. As we sat, she showed me beautiful black and white childhood photographs of the six children she had just finished raising. She told me she was a Christian and told me about her 21 year old son that had died in a car accident the year before. I don't remember the details of what she said, but I remembered how she smiled through tears and the peace that emanated from her when she spoke of him. She told me that while she homeschooled and raised her children, she did not have the time to work on her art, but that how important children were to Jesus. So she trusted Him and prioritized her children above her career.

She said maybe once a year, when she could not take not doing art anymore, she might work through the middle of the night and complete a painting then. Then she said, "But you know what? At the end of 20 years, I had 20 paintings. And my friend who left her family to do art, never completed anything, because her circumstances were never 'ideal' enough to do her art. And now that my children are grown, I can paint all day long. As much as I want to."

As I observed her art in the gallery and displayed at various local businesses and homes, I saw how she had used many of those beautiful photographs she had taken of her children growing up and enjoying each other as the inspiration for much of her art. Though she painted timeless pictures of children in 19th century settings and clothing, she had copied her children's faces and expressions from their photographs as she painted.

I was too sick to volunteer many more times at the art gallery. And that was the only time I ever saw that woman. I don't remember her name, and I probably would not even recognize her if I saw her again. But, as my children were born, and I was exhausted with two little ones in diapers and no minutes to write for months at a time, I thought often of how that woman trusted the Lord throughout those many years of raising her children. I thought of how her one painting a year accumulated into 20 paintings. And some months, I did write 45 minutes a day three times a week. And when Andrew did radiation 30 minutes a day his first time through cancer, while I sat in the waiting room, I wrote fiction during those 30 minute periods. I believe the Lord used those little moments as one of the means to sustain me at that time.

During my marriage to Andrew, I never completed the novel I began my first and only semester in graduate school. Even while we were dating, Andrew would often talk to me about my writing. And I would always say, "Well, what if it's not the Lord's will that I ever publish a book?" I knew at the back of my mind, though, that unless I committed to finishing and publishing a book, I never would. All the writing books that caught my eye at the library or book stores that I skimmed always said the difference between someone published and someone not published is merely persistence. Throughout the years, I always read how various classics had been rejected by 45 or 60 or 90 publishers before they were ever published. And that is why I always responded with doubt when Andrew talked to me about publishing. I knew that even if I accumulated pages while raising my children, I could not commit to pursuing literary agents or publishing companies, especially not through countless rejections. I knew that committing to the goal of completing a book and publishing it meant committing to rejection with never the promise of publication. When I see actors on TV who played bit roles for 20 years and only now have a regular paying job as an actor, I wonder how they knew to persevere.

My high school fiction teacher, as well as all those books on writing, told me that self-doubt is a reality of a writer's life. A writer cannot help but write, and thus cannot help but persist through the self-doubt. Even though I often doubted I would ever get around to finishing writing a book, Andrew kept insisting I one day would have to publish. After he died, I read throughout his journals again of this insistence. And a few months after that, I discovered a letter in our file cabinet that I've shared on this blog before, where he mentioned one last time to "publish our book." When he wrote that letter, "our book" wasn't written yet. "Our book" was up to me to define. But those words that he wrote - typed in black on that crisp, white paper - give me the resolve to one day publish. He's not here for me to say, "What if I can't?" That black type stands immovable on that white paper. I cannot argue with it. And so, I simply say, "I must."

The Process of Writing "Our Book"

This summer, the children and I spent in New Jersey. We stayed with Andrew's parents, because his mom does not work outside the home and she could help me with the kids. Because of that, for the first time in my life, I wrote full-time. I was desperate to write and finish "our book," knowing it would be the only opportunity I would have this much help with the kids. I was desperate to take all my memories out of my purse and put them into a book, so that it could rest on a shelf. So that I wouldn't have to carry all those memories everywhere, weighing heavily on my shoulder, but could still access them anytime I wanted. I felt I needed to do this in order to be freed from the burden of my past, to move on with my life, and to give myself more fully to my children.

So this summer, I wrote up to seven days a week, 10-12 hours most days. I had never written an entire book before. If I wasn't actually writing, then I was trying to learn, trying to figure out how one even crafts a book in the first place. Some days I was trying to learn, Where does one go when one hits a brick wall? I read an extremely helpful book, Your Book Starts Here, by Mary Carol Moore. I read other memoirs and novels, looking for examples of how they handled certain techniques.

I didn't care about the number of words - except that it was tight enough to be less than 250 pages. Obviously I can write endless words (as evidenced by the seven years of verbosity on this blog), but crafting a narrative, making all the big picture decisions was a whole new level. It was irrelevant if I hit 250 pages, but had not created the experience that I envisioned. Regardless of how many pages I did or didn't write, I only cared that I accomplished a particular journey.

This book was completely new. It was not the blog. It was our love story and the untold details of our cancer trial.

There were many times I wanted to give up. But committing to publishing is like committing to marriage. Some days aren't good, but a marriage won't work without full commitment. What if I'm wasting my time? What if I never finish the book? And even if I do, what if I never publish for my whole entire life? Yet the Lord continued to lead me through it. He continued to allow me to persevere. And by my deadline, after seven weeks of summer full-time writing, I finished the first draft!

With the first draft out of my mind and onto paper, when I awoke the next morning, I felt as if I had emerged from a fog, even though I had been in this fog for so many years - ever since the endless days of losing Andrew little by little during the endless months and years of cancer - that I didn't even know I had been in a fog until I emerged from it. My memories no longer weighed on my shoulders. They were crafted into a narrative on paper.

I was completely burnt out from relentlessly working on the book. I thought I might never want to write again, or at least not edit that first draft into a final one. I thought maybe the desperation to publish this book might have relented. Could I live my life without ever publishing this book? Perhaps all this desperation to publish that I deep down felt for so many years, maybe it would finally leave me alone without ever having to publish? Maybe I just needed to write this book for my own grief process and that's it?

The Editors

The next day, I attended a Christian writer's conference where I was able to speak face-to-face with one acquisitions editor. I'll call him Editor A. I showed Editor A the first five pages of my book. And to my surprise, he gave me the best words I could have hoped for. He told me it was compelling and well-written and that I should shoot for a large publishing house - whether Christian or general market - rather than a small one like his.

From there, I did not know what the next step was, except that I knew I was burnt out and could not take any further steps until I recovered. So, I focused on my life with my kids and did nothing with the book. Then, six weeks later, by chance, when I was with my friend, she introduced me to someone high up in a large Christian publishing house - we'll call him Editor B. I knew his position and instead of talking to him like one normally would talk to someone they have just met in a normal social situation, I immediately launched into trying to sell him my manuscript (forget the fact that it was still in its first draft). He was so kind, and probably due to his compassion about the trial I had been through said, "Okay, then why don't you email me your book proposal."

When I returned home and looked at the one page book proposal I had written at 3am before the Christian writers conference from the summer, I realized it would clearly not do. So I spent the rest of the fall writing a book proposal and trying to figure out what, in fact, was a book proposal after all? I also heavily edited those first five pages I had originally showed Editor A as well as heavily edited an additional chapter from my book. And then, shortly before Thanksgiving, I finally emailed him my book proposal along with sample chapters. I prayed that even if he rejected it that it would not be a dead end, because I had no idea where to go next. I did not know how to edit my first draft without some additional direction. If he didn't publish my book, I still hadn't decided whether I was aiming for a Christian publisher or general market, which I really needed to know, since that would greatly shape the way I edited my manuscript.

I didn't know where I fit in. I had learned from a literary agents' panel at the Christian writers conference that the Christian market didn't like memoir. The only personal stories Christian houses tended to publish were missionary biographies. Yet, in general market, memoir was the most popular genre. As I looked at my chapters, it was clear that my book was so utterly Christian. It was unlikely to be publishable for the general market.

Two weeks after emailing my proposal and sample chapters, I got a response. Editor B had such encouraging words to say, it did not even feel like a rejection. I had never thought being rejected by a publishing company would feel so exhilarating. Was this how Christian editors reject people? Did both Editor A and Editor B just feel too sorry for me to tell me the truth and were just being nice? But isn't rejection what they do for a living? Is this how they reject all people? This wasn't the cursory way the writing books described rejection letters. Wasn't all rejection supposed to feel like a college rejection letter? In addition to his extremely encouraging words, Editor B then said that while they don't publish personal stories, he had just received a note from someone at another publishing house to send along writers to them, as they tend to attract similar types of authors. Editor B said I could tell them he sent me.

So onto the next publishing house. Again, never mind that my manuscript is still in its first draft. Besides, while some publishing houses expect that your manuscript is perfect before you ever contact them, others prefer you have not completed writing it, so that they can shape the book with you. Using Editor B's suggestions, I took a few days to edit my proposal. Then I emailed Editor C my five page book proposal and two sample chapters. I immediately received one of those automatic emails that confirms they received my email.

The next morning, I got two personal emails from two different contacts at Editor C's publishing house that they had indeed received my proposal and would be reviewing it more closely shortly. What was this, two personal emails just to let me know that they had received it and had already quickly looked it over? You're supposed to hear nothing for up to 6-8 weeks and then expect never to hear from them at all if they haven't already contacted you. Two days later, Editor C emails that he wanted to see additional specific chapters that he indicated. (My book proposal contained chapter summaries, so he knew what was contained in those particular chapters he asked for). Thankfully, I had already thoroughly edited one of the requested chapters, because my writing group was meeting that week for the first time in months, and I had just emailed it to them. But the other chapters - were they even coherent? I spent the weekend feverishly editing his requested chapters.

I emailed those chapters, assuming he meant for me to send them right away. But I knew that those chapters were not as strong as the ones I had originally sent him, knowing I had edited the original ones for two months before sending them, as opposed to a few days.

I also knew that when I looked at the list of books that Editors B and C's publishing houses had published, I did not see any personal stories. They were only manuals written by well-known pastors. The books usually were originally sermons that these pastors, I assumed, unlike me, did not have to publish like they had a looney tunes bomb lit inside of them about to explode at any second if publication never happened. In themselves, their sermons had already helped their congregation and online listeners. If those sermons never got published in a book, those pastors knew their sermons had already fulfilled their original purpose, which was for their congregation.

But my book - "our book" - well, I wasn't a well-known pastor. I was a writer. Who wrote to be read. This book had never been read before. And if it only stayed on my hard drive, well then, maybe it was just a journal. And all that work - no one would benefit, except for me. And was that enough for me? Would I ever be okay with that?

A few weeks passed and Editor C responded about the additional chapters - I got the cursory rejection letter that I actually was curious to taste. It tasted like a college rejection letter. It tasted bland, and left a hollow, loser-ish feeling in my belly.

I ran to my room and kneeled quietly before the Lord. I did not even know what to pray. I opened my Bible not knowing where to turn. My mind was blank. I paged to the Psalms and happened upon Psalm 118 and it ministered to my heart. "Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;
For His lovingkindness is everlasting...."

And,
"It is better to take refuge in the LORD
Than to trust in man."

And,
"I will not die, but live,
And tell of the works of the LORD.
The LORD has disciplined me severely,
But He has not given me over to death.

And,
"This is the LORD’S doing;
It is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day which the LORD has made;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it." Not to mention, it was AJ's 7th birthday. And I was rejoicing for the 7 years the Lord had blessed me with AJ.

And,
"You are my God, and I give thanks to You;
You are my God, I extol You.
Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;
For His lovingkindness is everlasting."

Give Up?

As the day went on, I considered, Should I give up? Or, people always say, "Have you ever considered self-publishing?" I've asked other writers, who have not published, that question as well. They always evade the question. I think to a writer, who has never published before but has longed to publish all their lives, who has longed to publish before the digital age and self-publishing, it feels like a cop-out. On the other hand, I heard an author once say, who had published with large, publishing houses back in the 80s and 90s that it is more profitable now for her to self-publish. On her most recent book, she hired out the editing, she hired someone to design her cover, and she paid for all the hard-cover copies of her book. And yet, she still made more money per copy than she had with a traditional publisher. Despite all that she invested up-front, with self-publishing, she makes $5/copy. With a traditional publishing house, she made $1/copy. Nonetheless, those of us without all her experience with traditional publishers that she had before self-publishing, still feel safety in the idea of being taken under the wing of a traditional publisher.

Writers aren't writing for the money. They're writing because they can't help themselves but write. Writers always have the question of "What if I never publish?" Or, if they have published, "What if I never publish again?" Or, "What if it's not good enough?" There seems something unsatisfying about the idea of a publisher never validating the writer, never saying, "Actually, it is good enough." There is something unsatisfying about the writer, instead, just saying, "Who cares what the big professionals of the publishing world says? I can publish myself." But who knows, maybe in a few months, I'll find myself excitedly self-publishing. After all, that author makes an extremely powerful argument for self-publishing.

But I think before I consider self-publishing, these experiences with Editors A,B, and C have given me the direction that I have needed in order to finish editing my book. Having someone specific to write for has shaped my manuscript and their feedback has already improved it so much. Also, as I prayed throughout this process, I decided I would gear this manuscript for a Christian publisher, as opposed to general market. I could still change my mind, but that is the direction I am headed towards. I think I will complete editing my manuscript, then submit it 10, 20, or however many rejections it takes to nearly kill me, and see from there. The Lord has lead me this far, and whenever I thought I might be hitting a dead end while writing this book, He continued to show me the next step.

I mentioned earlier that pursuing the completion and publication of a book is like marriage - you have to be committed both on the bad and the good days in order for it to work. What I didn't mention is that when you do initially commit to marriage, it's because you can't help yourself, you're in love. Well, I couldn't help myself with this book. I had to write this book. I had to complete it. Maybe I love it because it's about my love for Andrew. And now I have to publish it - or at least do everything I can to try.