Flinging Arrows At Invisible Targets. While Blindfolded. And Handcuffed.

Or, writing the next while selling the previous.

I have a novel on submission. For you non-writer types, that’s when your agent shops a writer’s novel to publishers. Editors read the manuscript (hopefully), and, if they dig it, present it to acquisitions. If the sales, marketing, and promotional teams think the book may sell, the editor makes an offer. Ideally, the writer ends up with a contact and, in twelve to twenty-four months, a book on store shelves. Or Amazon’s pages. Until then it’s a waiting game.

This is the Dark Time.

In February I signed with a new agent. One I’d tried to land previously. He’s well-respected and works for a legendary agency and I’m lucky he picked me up. He sent me out (industry lingo!) in early March. A few editors have passed, others are still reading (hopefully), some haven’t yet started (hopefully). Every so often my agent emails me an editor’s rejection. I asked for these to be forwarded when the process began. Seemed wise at the time. You know, feedback and all (my favorite compared me to Jonathan Lethem. Yay?) Now, though, I wonder if that was the right move.

I’ve been working on the next novel since early June. It’s dark and transgressive and if I don’t pull it off, a very tough sell. Hell, at it’s best it won’t be easy. But my agent listened to my pitch and urged me to give it a shot. His words: “Since nobody knows what works anymore, there are no rules.” When he said that, in Rosie O’Grady’s new home on 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, I felt a rush. Go for it, kid (kid? I’m 48. Also, he didn’t say kid). Total creative freedom, so long as you accept the risk. That being nobody may ever read what you write.

Last week a dream editor with the country’s biggest publisher passed on my current novel. Not a surprise; this was a big swing. But his email included words to the effect of, “we don’t see a market for this setting”. The setting in question is New York City in the early 1990s. The novel I’m writing is New York City in the now, or very recent past. Different times. Different cities in many ways. But the true setting is still my vision of my city. I don’t think I want to change that.

This brings us back to the Dark Time.

There’s been a lot of talk on Writer Twitter lately about the state of publishing. A historically-slow process has ground to downright glacial. Published authors have had novels die on submission (that is, fail to sell to an editor) that in years past would’ve been snapped up. Friends have shared their agents’ frustration at the lack of publisher feedback. And there’s the growing need for novels to have pithy, easily pitchable premises (it’s Gone Girl meets Sally Rooney—IN SPACE!). Every day I wonder if anyone but me and my agent are into what I’m doing.

Which makes writing the next one so hard.

Trends change. What was hot then (psychological suspense!) isn’t what’s hot now (romantasy?) The best advice I’ve heard is to stay true to your vision. This has come from major authors, friends, my agent, and a few editors. And so I have. I write midnight-black noir set in the city that shaped me. My agent is on board with that. Question is, for how long?

This may all change tomorrow. We might get interest on the novel that’s on submission. I could stop complaining (my wife would love that). I may even stop measuring my publishing journey against my friends’ (my wife would love that, too). All of this is possible. And, until it happens, unknowable. Until then, I’ll keep pounding out words.

And refreshing my email. Cause I’ve got a novel on submission. Did I mention that?

Sigh. This fucking business.