If I Stop Trying Will It Happen?

Probably Not

In June 2023 I wrote a Substack post about my attempts to get my memoir published. At the time I’d been querying literary agents for months; I’d gotten a handful of rejections and one or two agents who expressed interest in reading the manuscript. Three agents asked to read the entire book, which, I’ve learned, is a sign of real interest. Nonfiction, memoir specifically, is often sold on proposal rather than manuscript. In other words, nonfiction writers are tasked with creating a 30-page marketing plan (along with the drafted and unread manuscript) just to land an agent. There’s still this belief in Publishing World, I guess, that Memoir won’t sell.

Up until two months ago I queried agents who did not require a book proposal. According to my (insane) submission spreadsheet, I’ve queried approximately 57 agents, submitted to 10 indie presses, and competed in 5 manuscript contests. I came ‘close’ with four agents— one even CALLED ME. Like, on the phone. I really thought that was The One. But my follow-up has gone unanswered, and I can’t decide if that’s because the agent (like all agents) is buried under things to read or because the agent hates me and hates my book. Naturally my anxiety tells me it’s personal, that my book is just not good. And then my shame knocks my anxiety on its head, asking why I’m so sensitive, so unable to let things be.

A confession: after I finally dumped my terrible ex-boyfriend in my second year of college I got a tattoo under my left boob. It was a moment of transformation I felt needed to be marked. Which means I’m stuck forever with a tattoo that says Let It Be………… (I was 20). Anyway, my point is I think I thought getting a reminder imprinted into my epidermis to chill the fuck out would help me do so. I also had this David Foster Wallace quote written above my writing desk for years, also beckoning forth some kind of chillness into my brain:

‘Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks all over it.’

I’m curious about this quote now. I think in a way I’m proud of my inability to let things go; it is, I am 10000% sure, why my husband and I are married (lol), why I’m still living in Los Angeles, why I’m still writing. Where I’m uncomfortable with the quote and with myself is in the clenching.

Another confession: in 2016 I was falling in love with a man when he decided to break things off with me. It was one of those fast-burning relationships of mid-twenties life; I think I fell in love with the ability for us to go get drunk at a bar somewhere together and fall into bed together, then make coffee in the morning, on and on. He had a key to my apartment and on the day he broke up with me he returned the key. We were in my apartment and when he stood up to leave I ran to the front door, throwing my back against it, heart panicking. I remember saying I won’t force you to stay with me but wasn’t that what I was trying to do? Block his exit? As if that act could somehow make me lovable and not pathetic.

Honestly, I think I’ve metaphorically blocked every partner’s exit from my life. Resisted, denied, sometimes begged. Claw marks all over it but the it wasn’t them, the it was me. I’d always come out scratched and bruised, coated in self-loathing. After the afore-mentioned breakup in 2016, I was a fucking disaster. I’ve written about that time more than once— the heartbreak was incredible. And then within that heartbreak I met my now husband. Eventually things felt natural between us, good. Except that he was moving across the country in a few months.

I’d text my friends about how unfair it was that I found The One (lol) only for him to be leaving, only for our chance to be cut short by fate. I railed against something— fate, I guess— until I was blue in the face. A few of my friends gave me advice that I’d heard before, something like Things Come to You When You’re Not Looking For Them. They seemed to be saying: let the fuck go. Give up already. They were probably worried about how tumultuous my love life was then, how heavily I placed all of my worth onto romantic ‘success,’ and I think they aimed to comfort me by claiming I’d find what I was looking for when I stopped searching for it.

Yet another confession: I did not stop searching for it. I did not stop obsessing over that man I was in love with. I liked the idea in concept, letting go, but I just couldn’t. And we’re married now sooooo… I don’t know. It’s a perk and a curse to clench so tightly I guess.

It’s been a year and a few months since that Rejection Substack post in 2023. I’ve continued querying, continued fine-tuning my manuscript. I’ve continued to get rejected and to get close. There are the facts: memoir is hard to sell, landing an agent at all right now is tough, etc. etc. And then there are the feelings: my book isn’t good enough for publication. That is such a vulnerable admittance that I am grinding my teeth but I’m trying to be honest so I’ll leave it in. I have begrudgingly written a book proposal (and become a marketing expert I guess!) and am on another round of querying, this time with the book proposal and agents who demand them.

There’s also this novel that’s half-alive. I write things for it sometimes but I have no schedule with it. I have had a hard time trying to ‘sell’ my memoir while also trying to write my novel. And reading that sentence back I’m like well, duh, writing a book is fucking hard, selling a book is near impossible, and you’re doing both. I don’t think I’ve given myself enough patience or grace in my efforts to live in both books/projects. I’ve gotten myself into mini panic attacks thinking that I’ve made a grave error in trying to publish the memoir first. Seriously, I have spun my brain into cruel knots believing that it was the mistake of my life to have focused on this memoir rather than a novel. I’ve berated myself that I’m behind (that 5 under 35 list is a plague bc every year I age my brain is like well, one year closer to aging out of the only list that matters and who the fuck am I to even think of being on that lol), that I’m not doing enough. Whatever. Also my friend died and the grief has been so heavy I’m surprised, when I zoom out, I’ve been able to write at all.

To be honest I think I was so hesitant about writing a proposal because I thought that the act of writing the proposal would make me hate my book. I worried that such an observing of my book’s innards would make me lose faith in why the book needed to be published. But that’s not what happened. I churned out the proposal quicker than I anticipated, sent it out to a few trusted readers, and even made edits within a month. I added sentences about my writing abilities and my presence in literary communities (thank you for forcing me to do so

lindsey peters berg

) and wow, I am amazed at how much life is still in this thing. It’s got claw marks all over it, just like me.

---

I have been submitting a flash CNF piece out that I’m excited about. It’s about grief and transformation, about skin shedding and cocoons. I hope it finds a home soon, for now I’ll leave you with a passage:

Summer drags its feet. The grief goes on. Mary, Shawn, the friends I loved and thought loved me back. I run through each loss every day, weaving myself a cocoon of grief. It is colorless. I imagine my ex-friends drinking and doing lines, all of them wearing wife beaters or lime green. An unawareness of grief I’ll never know again. Time moves slowly in strange moments, like before I get into the shower. There are days when I can do nothing but wait for something I don’t even know how to name. Nothing to do but tuck myself into my colorless cocoon and wait. When I emerge I will be a different person. My skin will be new.