Broken Pens, Broken Spirits, But in the End, It’s Worth It
Hello Friends and Family.
What you will find below is a little journal I started on October 29th, 2020. On that night, I had received an e-mail from a publisher informing me that while they liked the premise of my book, there were some issues that would need to be fixed before they could seriously consider it for publishing.
To say the least, I was crushed. After nearly two months of querying my book, getting several out and out rejections, and a few slightly nicer ‘I don’t think I’m the best fit for your book’ responses, I had already begun to feel that the journey was over. What I didn’t know was that it had just begun.
The brutal truth was that this publisher was 100% correct. My book did have issues. Yes there were some good parts, which the publisher mentioned. But the bad certainly out weighed the good at that point. Of course, there were still agents that hadn’t gotten back to me, but this response had something that I hadn’t before encountered.
For the first time I had been given actual insight, from actual professionals concerning what I needed to change. Other’s had read my book, and in some cases had even given me feedback on things that might need to be changed. I however, didn’t listen, or only made small, cosmetic changes. Now, in glaring black and white, I was confronted with problems, some of which were hills that I had once sworn I would die upon.
I had a choice. Die on the hill, or acknowledge that maybe I didn’t know everything there was to know about telling a story, and move to a new hill. After a few days, I moved.
But before I moved, I created this post, with the title Broken Pens, Broken Spirits (pretty melodramatic huh?). Really what I was trying to do was record my feelings (past, present, and eventually future) so that someday, when the fate of my book had been decided (Traditionally Published, or Self-Published), I could come back here and remember those raw emotions, felt in the moment.
On March 25th, 2021, at 11pm, I sat down at my computer, opened this post, and changed the title. Because on that day, at around 5:40pm, I opened an e-mail, from the same publisher (Sage’s Tower Publishing) that read “We are pleased to inform you that after reviewing your manuscript, we believe Eyes in the Dark would make a wonderful addition to the Sage's Tower library.”
Please let this post stand as a testament to other writers out there. YOU CAN ACHIEVE YOUR DREAMS! But you have to be willing to put in the work. And you have to be willing to listen to what others are telling you. Seek as much feedback as you can, preferably from truly neutral parties. Find a writing/critique group in your area or on Discord. Advertise in your local library for beta readers. You could even create a Facebook or Instagram group. One way or the other, get that feedback, because it WILL help make your book better.
I want to thank the entire team at Sage’s Tower Publishing *Whom you can find here Sage's Tower Publishing – Bringing Authors and Dreams Together One Book at a Time *for taking a chance on a debut author. A year and eleven days after I started my journey as a writer, I’ve learned that the journey has still only just begun. I hope that you will come along for the ride. But for now, I present the Eyes in the Dark journal detailing the path from A to Q or so.
March 14th, 2020
Here in America, COVID-19 has just shuttered our sports leagues, our school systems, and in many places our jobs. It is also on roughly this day, that I decide I’m going to write a book. This is actually something I have tried to do before. Multiple times in fact, and each time ended in failure. A few chapters, sometimes a bit more than a few chapters, but inevitably nothing left to show for my efforts except a neglected word file, hidden away in the recesses of my computer.
May 26th, 2020
Early in the evening, I type the final word of a book that is now titled Eyes in the Dark. A book that I have poured all of my focus, effort, mind and even tears into. And while I typed the words, I wasn’t the only person who deserved credit for this book reaching completion. My wife and daughters not only helped me with inspiration, but also motivation. I shed a few tears that night. They were happy tears, but they were also tears of exhaustion and a foolish misplacement of what being DONE actually meant when talking about a book.
May 26th thru June 21st, 2020
The day I completed my book, I went and created a Twitter account specifically dedicated to my new pursuit of becoming an author. I did this in part because I had watched YouTube videos that told me this was the way it worked. Seek out the writing community one super energetic personality declared. You’ll find lots of people that can provide advice, feedback, inspiration, testimonials… there were probably other things they could provide but I don’t remember them. So I created a brand spanking new account and dove in. The writing community really was accepting and generous, which was lovely.
Another thing I did at this time was put my book on the shelf. This was a suggestion I had gotten from the same YouTuber I think. The idea being that if you removed the manuscript from your sight for a month or so then when you returned to it, it would be fresh and new and you could more readily edit it.
June 22nd, 2020
This was the first day that I actually started editing my manuscript. At this point my three daughters had read it. I took the physical copy that they had left notes, suggestions, and punctuation changes on and proceeded to read the book from end to end myself. I looked for errors, added to the notes or suggestions, and did some planning concerning parts that we had all identified as the most likely candidates for changes. This process took me about a week and a half.
June ???, 2020
I hired an editor (shoutout to Ashlynn!) and began the long process of editing/rewriting. Ashlynn helped me immensely, helping me with punctuation, grammar, and giving me idea’s about what may need changed, and what was good. However, the greatest piece of advice that Ashlynn gave me was to seek traditional publishing. Up until she said this to me, I really had been set on just self-publishing my book. In my mind, I had written it for my girls (wife and daughters) and really my only asperation was to be able to hand each of them a copy of the book once I had put it on Amazon.
August 20th, 2020
On this day, I submitted my first 5 query letters to Literary Agents. In what may be a record, I actually got a rejection within 2 hours of hitting submit. In fairness to the Agent, my first attempts at query letters were, to say the least, not all that good. During each of the next several weekends, I would submit another batch of queries. By the end of things I had queried Eyes in the Dark about 35 times.
October 30th, 2020
At some point, on this day, I sent an email to Sage’s Tower, letting them know that I would be revising and resubmitting my manuscript to them, once I had presented it to Beta Readers and such.
November 2nd or 3rd (I think), 2020
I called a big brain meeting with my girls, which in our house, is simply all of us gathering in the living room and talking about whatever issue is at hand. Everybody had read the feedback, and I came equipped with a notebook and a pen to record any and all suggestions that were brought up for changes that needed to be made, or where we could ‘trim the fat’. A LOT of things were brought up, though some were much more popular than others. One of the biggest changes? The ending. Something I had come up with while writing Chapter 3. I had been told previously that it might be a contentious point, but I had soldiered on, confident that a majority of readers would ‘get’ my vision and appreciate it (We’ll ignore the fact that I myself had changed the ending slightly on two or three occasions because I had a ‘better’ way of telling it). Out of that meeting, I returned to the drawing board. The first two weeks were extremely painful. I was wracked with doubt, imposter syndrome, you name it, I felt it. My biggest difficulty during these early weeks was the feeling that I had already done all of this a dozen times before. Slowly but surely though, a better story began to emerge. A story that had more teeth, that made more sense, that had far few characters with which to muddy the waters. Two entire chapters were removed, while five entirely new chapters were added (or in one case completely re-written).
December 12th, 2020
Eyes in the Dark made its way into the hands of a whole new group of Beta Readers. Before it was all said and done, I enlisted 6 Beta Readers (none of whom were family, or in some cases even acquaintances). By the end of December I had sent it off one for one last polish from my editor.
January 13th, 2020
The day after getting a rejection response from the second Agent I had ever queried (Back on August 20th), I sat down to read my (new) novel one last time before sending it back to Sage’s Tower. I wish in the moment I would have realized the significance of hitting that SUBMIT button, one, more, time…
Well, there you have it. A blog post that has taken me MONTHS to write. I can’t count the tears that have been shed since this whole journey began, though I’m guessing they will pale in comparison to the tears that will yet be shed as this journey only now starts revving up for real. I hope you’ll come along with me. I hope you’ll stay with me through more re-writes, through new editors, but mostly, I hope you’ll be here when the dream is fully and truly realized. Until then good reader, stay safe, and take care.