Allowing Your Writing Time to Grow

Spring. Time for fog and gardening. It’s time to till the earth, plant seeds and watch them grow. A time for hope and growth and dedication. It’s the same in the publishing world.

How many of us have drafts out there we’ve queried, we’ve edited, we’ve sent out on sub? How many of us have planted seedlings and are now hoping, waiting, wondering?

Now. How many have started to lose hope for some seeds we've scattered last year?

Are any of you now weighed down with rejections? It happens. 

We see peers’ stories move forward, we see deal announcements, and we see cover reveals. We feel their thrill and we are full of happiness for them. And we want to bloom like that too.

Whether we want an agent to smile upon us, a peer group to give the thumbs-up (perhaps even a positive thumb-down), or we want an editor to proclaim their publishing house as the perfect home for our works of writing, we will wait, painfully hopeful. We wait for any news at all, but the bulk in this industry will be bad news, or worse yet, the great unknown... no news at all.

We might feel like a fog has rolled in and suddenly every sign is vague and too brief to understand.

It’s a pass. I’m looking for something more instructive but less didactic.

...wait, what?

I love everything about this, but I don’t know where to work with it. Pass.

...um, so ... hmm?

This is all part of the publishing cycle you’ll continue to go through throughout your career. You'll search for any direction in the fog—little signs, short glimpses that point you the right way. During this endless game of waiting most of what you'll hear is a lot of criticism at best, or you’ll get ghosted like a bogus blind date which is certainly worse. That’s the industry today.

You'll wait and worry and wonder and hope and ache and search and read, and write ... always, always you will write. Whether with despair or with electricity in your fingertips, you will write because it’s just what you do. You’re a writer.

And that’s where I’m going to turn back to our spring time garden analogy.

Allow your writing time to grow.

If you have an agent, an editor, or perhaps most importantly of all, a strong and honest peer critique group, you are like that little seeding I’m about to stake to a garden pole. You have the support you need to keep climbing, keep growing, and keep producing whether someone is coming along to pick your fruit just yet or not.

The important thing to remember is, not all fruit is equal and not all of your fruit will be equal either. As you grow and lean on your support, be it an editor or a gaggle of writing buddies, you will mature. Your blooms will grow more attractive, and your fruit will sweeten.

And when you face rejection, remember it’s not meant to stomp you out, but to prune you.

When someone gives you the time to pull weeds from your work or cut back dead words, it is truly a valuable gift. Never forget that. Especially now.

Even if you’re facing a foggy listless spring, keep writing, let peers keep pruning, and keep growing. Your blooms will be all the better for it, and your fruit, all the juicier. Keep growing and you'll harvest a beautiful gift for all the more readers.