Inkslinger On writing, on books, and on book arts

“The Submission Train”

For all of March, I've had my nose to the grindstone.  April is ever-so-slightly less so.  If making regular updates to my blog has been difficult, reading other blogs has been more so.

I'm slowly scrolling through last month's posts.  Like yesterday, the one that hooked me is about the process of getting published.  More specifically, it's about the panic the submission train (great phrase!) inspires in writers.  I've been seeing a lot of this panic these days.  I hope Moon Rat from Editorial Ass can help calm your nerves.

An excerpt:

This is hard news to swallow, so I'm going to type it in boldface. It's better not to be published at all than to get published in an inferior way. Doors begin to close if you try to take shortcuts. Instead, take your time to do things right. Accept no compromises. You will be much unhappier with a published book that has gone awry than with an unpublished book that still has potential. I linked to this article recently, but I'm linking to it again--this is Aprilynne Pike's essay on why taking your time toward first publication is worthwhile (she knows, because she made good decisions--her debut hit #1 on the NYT bestseller list). So I'm not the only one who says this.

In short, your writing must not be contingent upon your getting published. Book publication is affected by many factors. A book may deserve to get published, but the market may be wrong. A book idea may be wonderful, but the execution may not be really up to snuff and need more work. The author may be a fantastic writer, but maybe this particular manuscript isn't the best book on its own, or maybe it's a good book but not a good debut. In all of these cases, if the author pushes, pushes, pushes for publication no matter what, they will damage both their future career as a writer and their relationship with their art.

"I must get published" fever hurts a lot of people. It causes people to do things in desperation that will hurt or limit their long-term options. My recommendation to authors--and I know this sounds much easier than it actually is--is to try to develop zen about your books.