Evidentiary Hearing, Part II
Prove It.
Welcome back to Shelf Life on this fine late-March Tuesday morning. Before I forget, I want to take a moment to plug Spectrum, an anthology of queer, neurodiverse short horror fiction, edited by Aquino Loayza, Freydís Moon, and Lor Gisalson. This anthology contains 20 (if I counted correctly) short stories, including my “These Thirteen Simple Tricks Will End Your Sleep Hallucinations For Good.” You can preorder Spectrum at Third Estate Books or snag the Kindle edition from Amazon. Spectrum releases next month on April 2.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming, which is a look into why we believe the mean things we tell ourselves about our creative pursuits. Spoiler alert: None of these things would stand up in a court of law. They would blow right over in a stiff breeze.
Many people engage in something called self-talk. Not everybody does: I know a person who has no inner voice. It’s just quiet inside their head unless they are listening to external sounds. (Similar to how it’s dark in my mind, which creates no images on its own, unless I’m looking at something.) But many or most people have an inner voice, an internal monologue, and sometimes that voice talks to you, such as when you say things to yourself like:
“Okay take a left at the stop sign.”
“Don’t forget to buy milk, don’t forget to buy milk, don’t forget to buy milk.”
“You’re a failure and no one likes you.”
The third bullet is an example of negative self-talk, which happens when your inner voice gets ahold of your fears, doubts, and insecurities and repeats them to you as though they were facts. These things are not facts. For example, at least one person likes you because I like you. I am similar to a dog in that I like everyone who hasn’t kicked me yet.
As discussed at length in last Thursday’s Part I, a fact is a statement that is ojbectively true.
“You spelled objectively wrong in the sentence above.”
This is a fact.
“Your spelling is terrible.”
This is an opinion.
Terrible in the example is a value judgment, meaning “terrible” speaks to how bad my spelling is in terms of one’s standards. How bad would one’s spelling have to be to be objectively bad? How bad would it have to be for a reasonable person to agree that the spelling is bad? One misspelling per hundred words? Ten misspellings per hundred words? Every word misspelled?
When we say things to ourselves such as:
My writing is not any good.
I can’t possibly finish a complete novel.
No agent will ever sign me.
I’ll never get published.
My writing won’t amount to anything.
That is our inner voice engaging in negative self-talk to express a value judgment that is in no way factual. These are just the opinions of the inner voice. Paraphrase eminent fictional scholar and gentleman Dr John Zoidberg and respond to your inner voice: “your [opinion] is bad and you should feel bad.”
Let’s consider whether any of the above even have the capacity to be facts, or whether your inner monologue is just feeding you bull nuggets.
No Agent Will Ever Sign Me
According to the Directory of Literary Agencies, there are more than 1,000 literary agents working in the United States. There are at least several hundred more, again, working in the UK. There are more, still, than that, but let’s say that number accounts for the body of literary agents representing works written in English.
In order to know that none of these would sign your project, you’d have to query them all—or, at least, all the ones who represent works in your genre (for instance, “narrative nonfiction” or “fantasy romance fiction”). If you took a completed work and you queried every agent and got a resounding “no” from all of them—
Then that still doesn’t mean no agent will ever sign you. First, it’s not unusual for a writer to get a couple of completed novels under their belt before they write the one that is finally picked up by an agent. If indeed you have queried every appropriate agent and received a no, then it may be true that your current manuscript will not ever be selected for representation by an agent. This is not the same thing as you, the author of potentially many literary works, will never find an agent to represent you.
When a writer begins writing—I know this from personal experience of many long years ago and from discussion with many other writers—it can sometimes feel like you have one story to tell and that story is your Everest and once you tell it you will have completed the ultimate storytelling accomplishment and you either sell that manuscript or you’re finished.
It’s true that some people only have one story they want to tell and once they’re done telling it, they’re done. There’s nothing wrong with that, either.
But if you want to be a writer in the sense of a person who writes things for a living (or at least professionally), you’re going to tell more than one story. You’re going to tell a lot of stories over time. Each of those stories represents a new chance to query all those agents out there.
Never mind that there are also new agents hanging out their shingle and opening their doors for business all the time. Ten years from now you could dust off that story that wracked up 1,000 “no”s and trot it around again to a whole new cohort of agents and get a yes. But in the meantime, you will have written newer and better stories.
In summary, as long as you’re writing and telling new stories, you will have unlimited opportunities to query agents. The only way to ensure “no agent will ever sign” you is to stop querying them before you get a yes.
I’ll Never Get Published
This is like the easiest one to disprove. I don’t know why I’m even addressing it. I mean, I do know: Many people see “becoming published” as an end goal of the writing process, off in the hazy future, that requires an agent, an editor, and a publishing company to put their chips out to stake you. It’s an endeavor that requires all the stars to align—you have to write a manuscript that you’re happy with, and then an agent has to want to rep it, and then an editor has to want to sign it, and then the editor’s publishing company has to agree to back it. Every domino has to fall down in turn for this to happen. Every answer along the way must be “yes”; a single “no” will sink you.
Listen, this could not be further from the actual truth, which is this—and I say this as somebody with 20 years in the publishing business—anybody can publish anything they want at any time and nobody else can stop them from doing it.
Your negative self-talk could make a better case for a statement like:
I’ll never be a NYT bestselling author.
I’ll never become wealthy through my authorship.
I’ll never win a Nobel Prize in Literature.
Those things are outside of your direct control. You can write the best book imaginable and publish it with a Big 5 publisher and perhaps none of those things happen for you. They’ve awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 116 times to 120 people (it’s been shared by two winners four times). Out of all the authors that have existed in history, 120 of them have a Nobel Prize (for their literary work). The odds of getting this award are very slim.
Likewise, becoming wealthy—that’s subjective—as a result of one’s authorship is highly unlikely. The vast majority authors, including the small subset of authors who earn their living from writing, are not wealthy as a result. The ones who are usually haven’t done it through book sales alone but through licensing their IP for things like film rights, merchandise, amusement park rides, and stuff like that. That’s a small (but visible) minority of authors.
It’s more realistic to become the author of a NYT bestseller. There are 10 or 15 books each on 11 overlapping lists. That means there’s 140 slots per week or 7,280 slots a year for bestsellers. Many books take up more than one slot per week (for instance, Fourth Wing is currently on Combined Print & E-Book Fiction and Hardcover Fiction) and many books stay in their slot for multiple weeks so there are not 7,280 NYT bestsellers in a year—but there are 7,280 chances in a year.
The odds are better but becoming a NYT bestseller is still outside of your direct control. You can’t make it happen. You can write the best book possible but beyond that you hope for the best.
But getting published? You can do that right now. If you have a publishable manuscript—and by publishable I mean it’s complete, not that it meets any arbitrary standard of quality—you can get it published in the next 15 minutes. You could have it up for sale on Amazon Kindle before lunch. This is something that is within your direct, complete control.
Now: Self-publishing might not be what you want for your manuscript. I’m neither for nor against self-publishing compared with trad publishing. Perhaps you prefer to find a trad publisher for your manuscript and go that route. There’s nothing wrong with holding out for that.
But if your inner voice tells you you’ll never get published, you have the power to prove that wrong at any moment. Publishing is entirely your own prerogative.
My Writing Won’t Amount to Anything
I hardly know where to start with this. I am Jennifer Lawrence, teary-eyed, eating hot wings, begging you to tell me, “What do you mean? What do you mean!?”
What does it mean when you say to yourself:
My writing won’t make a difference.
No one will read this.
I’ll never be a success.
These are all statements so vague such as to be almost completely meaningless. This is a big clue that your inner voice is working those self-doubts: Instead of making a statement that you could logically evaluate for truth or falsehood, the inner voice just offers up a vague assertion of doom: “You will surely fail at what you try.”
If your inner voice is saying your writing will never amount to anything, the first question you should ask yourself is: What would it look like for my writing to amount to something? The answer to that question will tell you what you need for proof positive that the original statement is a lie.
This also works in other negative self-talk situations, by the way. And in negative non-self-talk, too, meaning when someone is being a jerk to you. Just pause and understand what’s the minimum criteria for proving this statement false and then ask “What would it take to get to there or, really, am I already there?” If somebody in a moment of anger says, for instance, “nobody will ever love you!” You can just be like “haha you’re demonstrably wrong because I love me and I’m somebody.”
What would it look like for your writing to amount to something: What is the minimum success criteria for your writing for it to have been worthwhile for you to write it? Some people might say “screw the section above, I either get the Nobel Prize in Literature or none of this was worthwhile.” I don’t know what to tell that person other than good luck. I hope they get their medal and their dynamite money.
For many, success might look more modest. Someone’s success criteria, when broken down, might actually look like:
My book got several thoughtful reviews.
People read my book and enjoyed it.
My book is published and available for sale.
My book is available to borrow from my local library.
I can walk into a local bookstore and see my book on the shelf.
These are all super attainable goals that are largely (though not completely) within your control. You can publish your book. You can send out ARCs (advance reader copies) to reviewers to encourage reviews or send complimentary copies to friends or acquaintances who are likely to read and enjoy it. You can work with your local indie bookstores and community librarians to stock your book in their physical locations. While you can’t control what others think of your book or which places choose to make it available for sale or loan, you can work toward your success criteria.
Don’t entertain vague, nonsensical mean statements from your inner voice. Vague, nonsensical encouraging statements only or shut the heck up.
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