The Journey To My New Novel, Pt. 4
I will tell you this: you can go your own way, but it's not always the easy choice
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Part four of this series is going to be a brief interlude in which I address parting with my former agent and publisher, which is part of the story, but not something I really want to dwell on in this series. As I’ve said before, writing this particular novel meant parting with my publisher because it was too much of a departure from what I’d been writing. And, as you’ll see in this part, it was also not a fit for my agent. Chronologically in the story, this seemed like the best place to do it, because it did happen pretty early on in the process.
After that conversation with my husband on 1/1/21 (see part 3) about what I should be writing (in which I simultaneously denied that I had anything to write and recalled the piece I’d begun that I actually could write), I opened that old file and began reading. Which led to me deciding that I did like this story and it was the thing I should be working on. The long and short of it is, I recommitted to the story and began to work on it in earnest.
In the past, however, that was not how my agent and I had worked. Typically, I pitched her an idea, she let me know if I should proceed with said idea, then I wrote a sample, after which we discussed what I’d written, she gave me notes, and then after some back and forth we decided if this was what I was going forward with. We had begun this process in April of 2020 with a different story and that had not worked out. So I admit I was gun-shy about bringing this new project to her— and risk being told no again. This was chiefly because this new story was all I could see myself writing.
So I just started writing and didn’t confer with her about it. Which was going against protocol, and I knew it. But it was more about what my husband had said about not being happy if I wasn’t writing. I needed to write, and this was what I was writing. That went on for several months of me just writing away, not telling anyone and becoming more entrenched in the story.
At some point during those months, I left everything from before behind. I became loyal to this story above all else. I can’t say whether this was the right thing to do or not. I can just say that that was what I did. There was a point during all that time spent of just me and these characters hunkered down in our little writing foxhole that this story became what I would fight for, no matter what. Even as I write this, I marvel how out of character this is for me, and still sorta wonder why I did it.
(Except, Davy. Which we will get to later.)
While I did eventually fess up about the story I had forged ahead with, and shared it with my agent, she did not have the same vision for it that I did and, with her blessings and best wishes, we parted ways. And so, now I had to, in some ways, start over from scratch. It wasn’t where I wanted to be. It wasn’t where I’d planned to be. But it was where I was. So I went from there.
Thank you to all who are reading, sharing, and liking this series. It’s something I’m doing for anyone out there who has a dream you want to commit to or have committed to, and just need some inspiration not to give up. My journey isn’t your journey, but I did glean some things along the way that might help you. At least, that’s what I hope.