Draft Zero to Writing Hero Chapter IV: Shelving Manuscript 1

[Image: My Hermes Baby typewriter with text "Draft Zero to Writing Hero"]

Hi fronds! Welcome to the grand tale about my writing journey! I wanted to write about this in all its roller-coaster ups and downs because I had a lot of trouble finding this information when I was getting started in 2016. This is definitely going to span several posts, but I hope my story will help someone else with their own path to publishing. If you'd like to know how this all began, please start with Chapter I.

Chapter IV: Shelving Manuscript 1

When I hit the one-year mark of querying my YA fantasy manuscript, I realized that I had to take a step back. By that point, I'd sent out more than fifty queries, although it feels like I must've sent at least three hundred. Out of all those queries, I got three requests for the full manuscript, and each of those ended in rejection. I had applied to mentorship programs, some more than once, but none of the mentors requested more pages. Revisions didn't seem to be helping, and increasingly, it felt like I was banging my head against a wall that whispered "I just didn't fall in love with it" at every impact.

I was just...struggling. And beginning to hate myself.

Being rejected from mentorship programs was almost harder to take than rejections from agents. Agent passes I understood; I knew they received hundreds, if not thousands, of manuscripts every week. But when it came to mentors passing on my work, it felt like I was being told that my work and I weren't even worthy of help, especially when the mentors didn't send feedback - which they almost never did. At one point, I found myself hiding inside the closet of our tiny basement apartment, crying in the dark because my partner knew the mentee picks were coming out that day and I couldn't bear to tell him that I'd been rejected again. I so desperately needed help from someone, anyone, and yet I just couldn't seem to get anyone to agree that I deserved it.

I'm not sure what the breaking point was for this manuscript, but I think it was the last request for the full. I remember sitting among half-packed boxes for our move abroad, my laptop balanced on my knees while my partner slept. I had been emailing with an interested agent for a few days, sending them info on my vision for the manuscript and its sequels. When I got the response that she had decided to pass, I went numb. And I got up and just walked out of the house.

[GIF: "I can't do this anymore."]

For about four hours in the middle of the night, I just wandered the streets. I was frustrated, bitter, angry, and disappointed with myself. At that point, I was broken. I'd put so much of myself into the manuscript. My critique partners loved it, but no one else seemed to. I struggled through ten drafts; poured blood, sweat, and tears into applications for help and yet received none; exhausted half my list of agents; and completely drained myself in the process. Where else was there to go?

At last, as I headed back toward our apartment, I decided to shelve this manuscript. There was no longer anything else I could do for it, and I realized that spending more time and effort on it would only be doing it a disservice.

So I shelved it. Heartbroken, I set the manuscript aside. For a little while, I worked on the sequels, but my heart just wasn't in it. And probably a lot of you are thinking, "Well, you only queried for a year. You only sent fifty queries. You could have done [X, Y, and Z]. You shouldn't have [A, B, or C]." And you're right, I could have queried more. I could have researched more before I began querying at all. I shouldn't have started with my top-choice agents. But the truth is, this was the best choice for me and for my manuscript. It doesn't make me weak, it doesn't make me a quitter. It makes me someone who knows when to stop.

Because if I hadn't stopped then, I wouldn't be where I am today.

Continued in Chapter V...

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(Disclaimer: I don't blame the agents for their rejections, and I don't blame mentors for not giving feedback. I didn't ask for feedback. However, I would also like to note that many writers feel discouraged from asking for feedback or notes from people within the writing industry who we perceive to have "power." The thought of being blacklisted by a mentor and put on blast across their social media channels is terrifying. I don't blame anyone for creating this culture, nor do I believe the mentors themselves are at fault.)