It's the first Wednesday in January so it's time for the Insecure Writers Support Group! The awesome co-hosts this month are Erika Beebe, Olga Godim, Sandra Cox, Sarah Foster, and Chemist Ken!
This month's question is a tough one: What's the one thing about your writing career you regret the most? Were you able to overcome it?
I'm not sure I actually regret anything about my writing career. Sure, there are some thing s I wish I'd done differently, but if I had done that, I may not be at the point in my career I am now. So I'm not sure I'd use a word as strong as regret to describe anything I've done so far.
I kind of wish I'd held out longer before accepting my first small-press offer because my whole career might have played out differently if I had. But you can't live on maybes and at the time it felt like the right decision. By then I'd queried four or five books without getting an agent offer and was beginning to think I was never going to be published. So after doing my due diligence with the agents who had manuscripts of mine, I decided to go through with it so I could have a better understanding of the whole editing and publication process.
Of course, almost as soon as I signed that small-press contract, I ended up getting an agent with one of my other books, but that's a whole other story, one that did not have the happy ending I was hoping for, and I am once again without an agent.
And now, more than ten years later, I'm still a small press author, albeit with a different small press. I continue to query new projects, but I have had even less interest in my newer titles than I did with the ones that are now published with said small press.
So regrets? Not really. Sure, I wish my books were available more widely, that anyone, anywhere could walk into a bookstore and see them on the shelves, that they would be in libraries across the world so the kids who need these stories could find them. But they are out there and available and people (not many, but a few) read them.
What are your biggest regrets about your writing career?
I have tons of regrets. Unfortunately, they're all things I didn't know about beforehand. Kind of hard do do something when you didn't know how.
ReplyDeletePublishing is such a hard industry, and there's so much an author needs to take on faith because it feels like the right decision at the time. You all are amazing for putting yourselves out there and taking those chances.
ReplyDeleteGood on you for such a positive attitude.
ReplyDeleteI've heard all kinds of good things about Evernight Teen.
Wishing you a happy-writing new year.
I learn as I go, so the things that have held me back end up being the things that teach me how to move forward. It seems so hard to get an agent and successfully move forward from there these days.
ReplyDeleteThe Warrior Muse