This past month has been a lot. I am not sure where to start. It has been such a combination of personal drama and complexities as well as writing.
I was putting together a graduate program application that felt rushed, honestly, and was not successful in the end because it was deemed not to be strong enough. It brought up triggers from my personal life, which was already complex enough. I will review this later on in this post.
With my fiction writing, I have continued looking for assistance on my novel revisions. An agent at RCW who is interested in seeing my novel when it is ready for submissions was calling for new authors this month, and was kind enough to respond to my request if he had any editors who might be able to help me finish sorting out the pov and narrative voice questions. Editors he knew had taken jobs with publishers, so he referred me to some consulting services. Several of them require a minimum of $2000 for their packages. From the beginning of January, I had also been talking to an editing firm in New York, Kevin Anderson. I was quite clear about my budget. I felt like my total budget could look like around $1500 if it would help me finish the developmental questions and get the book ready for submissions, but my cashflow is a trickle, and I would need to pay in installments. The same thing happened there as when I contacted the Novelry.
As soon as they thought we had established a positive relationship where I was ready to "trust them," everything went sideways rapidly when they destroyed any trust by overselling their high priced packages to me. Then acting like snobs when I reiterated my financial limitations. It was not as though I was expecting work for free or saying I would not find money to pay them. So it is not even a matter of having to have money to have support for your writing, but now you need to be wealthy to be respected as a writer, and snubbed if you do not? That's beyond the problems we talk about how writing needs to be democratised more, and going to being completely a world of "elitism." (which is ironic for those of you familiar with my writing and education) Both agencies were EXTREMELY insecure that I came with a relationship with a top agency in hand and interest in my writing already, since they sell their services based on providing hard to get networking opportunities with agents. Apparently if I am qualified enough as a writer to be able to secure interest in a book and have a request for submissions before it is ready, that makes me a problem for their sales channel?
In addition, I have this short story I have been invited to submit to a top literary magazine. It is the Yale Review. I have been requested to submit to the Yale Review in their agented only submissions window. Finding someone to help me polish the short story I have worked on for six months also appears to be problematic. Again, I have a story that is well developed, but if I come with opportunities I create for myself, that's threatening? I have written about this short story, which I believe would be a good fit for the direction the new managing editor, Meghan O'Rourke, has been creating for her tenure at the Yale Review. All I require is to find someone to support the final tweaks.
The sad reality is that apparently my writing is so good that when most other writers read it, they cannot provide ways to improve it. In this case, I have had several rounds of beta readers and official editorial assessments and critiques that could not make ANY suggestions because they just called it an amazingly strong story. I am not claiming my writing doesn't need help. I am actively going out there and collaborating and requesting help and support to make it better. I am only observing that if my writing is already better than average, and writers are just so impressed by my ability as a writer that they cannot help make my writing better, what support is available to me? And why do I wind up going to someplace like the Novelty, claiming to prep writers for submissions to top agencies, treating me like all writers are created equally? That is not my lived reality - and I am not saying it because I am arrogant, but because I am actively trying to find support and people who can make my writing better. AND I CAN'T FIND THEM.
To be honest, outside of these interactions, I spend very little energy comparing myself to other writers. I invest heavily in critique groups where I try to give feedback to help others improve their works. When writers ask questions where they don't appear to understand basic fundamentals, I tend to ignore rather than criticise. I am wholly focused just on my own journey. It is only when I am met with editors or others who make these assumptions and treat me like every other writer they have met, or the kinds of writers who needed to go through that journey and may not necessarily get it better now than they did before BECOME those editors I meet, that I feel like I am being compared to other writers.
This actually ties into my experience with the grad school application. I did find someone with experience in a top grad school program admissions, in the US. However, her ability and understanding was not at the level with the higher level grad school to which I was applying. It felt like in the end she was kind of doing a half-ass job. Even though I had put my trust in her to help understand what the admissions office needed to see. Her experience was not at the level expected for the graduate school where I was applying.
I thought the experience of going through several rounds of those essays would help prepare me for the process of several drafts of my other writing pieces and my novel. However, when I run into support that winds up wasting my time on detours and asking the wrong questions, it causes me to question what, if any, of the experience can be applied in the future?
At the end of the day, editors who want to offer their services to writers have the job of earning the trust of the writer. If these editors approach me and assume or compare me to the 80% of people who want to be writers and maybe do not know what they are doing, the only thing it communicates to me is that that is the only experience they have, or that they need me to to be part of that population to be able to help me and make my writing better. For me, being a numbers person, the bottom line is about risk management. How much risk am I expected to take on for an editor who expects to be paid for their time, and the result of my investment being something unusable? Editors keep creating this narrative that borders on gaslighting for me, that if a writer has a problem with their opinions or advice, it is because the writer can't handle criticism, not the opposite. Again, none of this accomplishes the goal that they need to accomplishes of trust building.
Sadly, I was hoping the author mentor she mentioned working with me would be able to clarify any red flags I had from the strange encounter. I thought since I had met Tasha Suri through the Spectrum panel on writing LGBTQ characters, she would be someone whose perspective I could trust. I scheduled a chat with her a few days later, and sent her a note inquiring about these issues. She totally ghosted me.
The personal drama and PTSD that has been on top of all of this is related to a situation I wrote about in a previous blog post. I have had this complex love triangle between a Guy where there is a lot of history and past toxic dynamic that causes me a lot of PTSD. The other side of the triangle is a friend of his who is a billionaire, who I have actually never met. I actually only really know the friend by reputation through the Guy, though I have been kind and supportive after running into a social climber who objectified the friend. Several friends have been supporting me trying to understand this situation.
To be fair, this summer when I was in touch with a close friend who is a WOC because she has been an inspiration to me and someone who provides insight when I am at crossroads in my life, and learned that she and Mr. Billionaire were serving on an advisory board together. That was the first external connection I had shared with him personally, outside of the Guy, aside from us being members of some similar communities. In fact, when I learned that my friend was connected with him in this way, I mentioned to the Guy that in keeping with the support for him to find normal girls who weren't gold diggers, she was fabulous and I hoped they would connect. I put her forward before myself as a great suggestion for him to get to know a feisty independent and ass kicking woman rather than women who followed him around for his money or popularity. It was awkward to think that he would be interested in me instead of her, actually.
My neighbor mentioned perhaps the reason he fixated on me, even though I was in the middle of trying to work out this complex past with the Guy, is because it is hard for the billionaire to meet normal women. From my stance, however, based on toxic behaviour from the Guy in the past, it would be more supportive in return to make sure that the Guy was not repeating any of those behaviour patterns now.
The Guy went to graduate school where I was applying, and I was interviewed by a professor who was a contemporary with the Guy in grad school in the same department. It was extremely triggering. The past toxic and emotionally abusive behavior with the Guy happened while he was a graduate student.
The end result of the whole process of trying to apply with the complex personal dynamic was the most severe PTSD experience that has been triggered since I walked from the situation previously. It felt like I was ripped in open down the middle and split in half. That raw emotional pain is what went into the first novel I wrote - and made the first draft unreadable. I remembered when I was in that place writing that book, and felt the same raw emotional pain. Of course if I apply to graduate school in the future, I need to do it when it is not such an incredibly triggering experience.
At that moment was when I reached out to my father and his family, the two families involved in the psychological trauma I experienced. I cannot continue in my life being afraid that the past will be repeated. However, my father has been the person holding back constructive dialogue. He is the one who understands the situation the least, and cannot demonstrate the honesty and authenticity that is needed for constructive conversation to clear up the past. It is causing me more pain, because I have nothing emotionally to give to him to help him understand what I need him to understand.
At least I hope to come out of the experience in a healthier place. I do believe the Guy understands my request to clear up and explain the past to my father, and is prepared to do that. However, my father cannot get there, and that's causing me more pain that I just need him to be on the same page.
About the love triangle, I had a panic attack about turning down a billionaire. If financial solutions would open up opportunities, it is not irrelevant to me that his money could help me be able to do things I want to do in so many ways. However, I have followed my heart and stayed true to a situation I have invested heavily in trying to resolve.
Oh, and I also had a birthday last weekend! How has your start to 2022 been? Any suggestions on places for me to turn for support with my writing?
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