Into the wild
Got an email today that officially closed the online publishing path. I knew it was coming. In fact, I was the one to take out the door stopper and let it swing shut in an effort to pivot to traditional publishing. But when that email came in with its finality and analysis of less-than-average performance—my exact reasonings—I all but heard a door at my back click closed, and terror set in.
It doesn’t matter how many novels I’ve written. How well they have done, or not done. This is a new journey.
And I feel like a girl scout sent out into the woods, kind of suspicious the fire starter pack she was given is expired. She’s small, unsure, upset she didn’t pay better attention in Solo Survival 101, and really wishing there was a way to explore the woods from the warm hearth in the cabin. She glances at the map of Traditional Publishing she’s borrowed from a travelling band of podcasters and mentors… Gulp.
^ the dark woods of Doom
Everyone knows Imposter Syndrome is the first beast you meet in these woods. It’s, according to the field notes from the Greats in the smudged corners of that map, it is all but unvanquishable.
Now, the girl scout writer has a kind-of, maybe story idea as a sidekick to survive these woods. But the little creature tugs at its leash; an untrained, unreliable mess of teeth and fur no amount of Invisalign and curl cream can fix. Let alone sleek into a neat little log-line bullet to fend off Imposter Syndrome’s smile. So it must be faced by sheer logic alone.
art is messy. Invisalign is pointless when it’s teething.
art takes time. time time time time. And this useless Barbie Bibble sidekick of a story might just grow big enough to stare Imposter Syndrome in the eye someday.
it is too soon to know if Imposter Syndrome is right or wrong yet. If you let it get to you, it is right. To prove it wrong, you have to wait and see. Refer to point 3.
Once the little writer—ah, heck; me, myself I. Once I have coaxed myself into courage and patience and face the woods in earnest, a colder question sinks in my chest. Do I want to do this?
My finger hovers over the Discontinuing Your Story email, the sender’s name starred in my contacts for years as I waited to hear from them. And I think, standing out on that cabin porch with the brusque, impersonal wind from the woods of Dreams Business and Money catching the chemical smells of the maybe-expired fire starter in my pocket, I think, I chose this. Do I want this?
Creating worlds is cool and all, but there is the time sacrifice, that sit at the typewriter and bleed thing, that it’s never good enough, yadda yadda. Though what’s been killing me lately is the stark loneliness of it all. The quiet clack of keys as I try to articulate something as mundane as the feel of dish soap or as finicky as a moment of comfort. With the purpose of communicating, I suppose, to myself and the world all the things I hate and love and want and feel, in a process too slow and too big to share. For a world that might not read it and a self that may not need communicating.
Do I want this? Because there’s also this other world of laundry and business meetings and drinks with friends and Hinge profiles. And maybe the latter would feel more satisfying if it wasn’t always parsed into communicable pieces for the former. And by the looks of this map, holding both these worlds doesn’t get easier.
So do I want this today? Screw tomorrow and the taming of this manuscript beast and the agents I am afraid to write and the money I need to make. Do I want to sit, ignore my Hinge profile and the laundry and maybe give up a drink with friends, to create a world that reflects something inside me I can’t quite name for someone else otherwise?
I think I do.
So I write my first blog post until that door-click point of no return isn’t quite so shocking. Still scary. But I find odd comfort in that conquerer’s phrase as from when their company wavered — burn the ships. All temptation to return to the homeland? Burn it. Now, I don’t consider this a sound business strategy, and historically that motto has cut up more of the world than it has healed. And yet is comforting to remember this small point of no return requires courage.
Thus I end with this: Courage, little writer. You don’t need to say everything to the world at once. Just a word or two at a time. Failure isn’t as dangerous as the cold wind makes it seem. And neither is loneliness. They both cycle around like the gears of a clock. Cinderella midnight might chime. So will the 6am alarm clocks. Don’t look at the whole map of the Scary Woods right now. Just the trees in front of you, and the fire starter in your pocket. The expiration date hasn’t past, not yet. So go into the woods, little Karis, and write.
