I think that writing a book might be the slowest way to go about getting a job.
The economic feasibility of said job aside (we all know that authors don’t really write because it’s fun or lucrative), it is an astoundingly slow process. Now, I write fairly quickly* and I’m still knocking out a full length draft in about three months. Self-editing until I’m happy with it takes a couple of weeks, beta readers take a week to a month depending on what’s going on in their lives,** and then there’s the entire rest of the process.
I have chosen to pursue traditional publishing, a famously nimble and responsive industry, because I’m aware of my weaknesses and I would do much better with someone else to handle 90% of the extrovert parts so that I might emerge from my cave with a new manuscript and then take my edit notes and scuttle back into the darkness. If I must do things that require either going places, or talking to people, I will require a very specific list of objectives, someone to ask exhaustive questions of before hand, and some degree of head pats afterwards.***
But the pursuit of traditional publishing means wading into the querying process, which I have come to understand over the last six months, is all of the least pleasant parts of job hunting, plus all of the least pleasant parts of online dating, combined into one activity where the average response time is six to sixteen**** weeks. Oh, and some people might not get back to you, ever.
I’m not going to try and claim that I’ve gotten better at waiting over the last six months; you don’t spend your entire life being bad at waiting and then suddenly git gud just because you sent your soul to internet strangers and are waiting to find out if they think it’s commercially viable.
The thing is, I handle waiting by doing stuff. My “stuff” of choice? Writing.
That’s how I got into this situation in the first place.
So now I’ve written two and a half more books while I wait.
They happen to be sequels to the one I am currently querying, and once the quartet is done, I’m finished with this particular world for a bit, so it’s not like I’ve got a backlog of things to query, but what if I did? What if they were all standalones? The stress of this hypothetical is upsetting, and it doesn’t even apply to me.
If someone does, eventually, decide they like me and my writing enough to work with me, when do I tell them about the looming tidal wave of other stuff I’ve written in the meantime? If the one I sent out today gets back to me in sixteen weeks, I’ll be well into writing The Bookbinder’s Guild at that point.
My choices are 1) continue writing and hope that no one accuses me of using AI***** and 2) idk, explode, maybe?
If no one has written a dystopia about how excruciatingly slow pipelines for artistic validation test the population for resiliency so they can resist the cyborg takeover, you should do that.
It’ll be at least a year before I can get to it, anyway.
Recent Writing
Wayne waved a hand down his body. “I’m not an outdoorsy guy. I’m an indoorsy guy.”
Aubrey smiled at the ground. “Well, thanks. I appreciate you braving the wilds on my behalf.”
“No problem,” he said cheerfully, stepping past her to continue down the track, one hand against the hillside. “I don’t mind visiting the outside. It’s just not my preference, is all. And I don’t have to be all that brave.” Wayne glanced back up the hill at her. “I’ve got you for that.”
What should we talk about next time? Let’s go with… writing advice. Yeah. That will no have no consequences, I’m sure.
Do good, friends.
*Or so I gather from the expressions on the faces of the people I have spoken to about it. The sharp intake of breath and the muttered “Oh, shit,” imply Some Things ™.
**They’re volunteers, as much as I want to loom over their shoulder like an SAT proctor, I’m not a monster, so I don’t do that.
***I can provide my own head pats, I am an adult, after all.
****Before this very day, twelve was the longest I’d seen in a confirmation receipt. I saw the sixteen and sighed. I have no idea what these poor peoples’s inboxes look like, but it must be hellish. When I went back to work after maternity leave, I just deleted my entire inbox; I wonder if that’s ever tempting to agents. Since I’m probably in some of those inboxes, I hope not.
*****Gun to my head, I’m not sure I could figure out what ChatGPT is, exactly. Is it an app? Is it a website? I’ve never been clear on that. I’m the wrong kind of autistic to be good at computers; that’s why I blog like it’s 2005.
Then They Kissed 