In my blog surfing the last few days, I have run across several blogs by literary agents. The tone of these blogs troubles me because the bottom line is that writers are powerless, that they are basically idiots who are deluded enough to think their stories, their memoirs, their novels, their ideas, will be published.
So pull up a chair, get your cup of strong coffee, and let me tell you a story about how it looks from a writer’s point of view.
1985. My first novel, In Shadow, has been published by Ballantine Books. The manuscript had been rejected by 24 publishers. And that was in the days when there were many more publishers than there are today. A young prince named Chris Cox bought it. He understood the story, he loved it, and I loved him for his confidence in the book.Like most new authors, I accepted any invitation that came my way to publicize the book.
We were living in Fort Lauderdale at the time, where there was a mystery bookstore that had invited me to do a signing. That’s where you, the author, sit at a table and sign books for any customer who comes into the store and purchases your novel. It’s a lot like hawking Girl Scout cookies. It is not my favorite publicity venue.So while I’m sitting at this table, in walks an attractive woman in her thirties.
She’s not one of these customers who asks how I got the idea for the novel. She doesn’t ask how long it took me to write the book.We chat. She’s into Seth – a huge landmark for me – and the I Ching – another big landmark. And she seems to know the I Ching backwards and forward. Give her a hexagram number, and she tells you the title. She bought a couple copies of In Shadow and I learned that she was from Kansas and was visiting friends in Fort Lauderdale. Her name was Nancy Pickard. Since there wasn’t any internet or email in those days, we traded phone numbers.
This was the beginning of a friendship that has endured 25 years. When I was pregnant with Megan and feeling uncertain as a 41-year-old woman facing motherhood, Nancy and I and her young son took a walk on the beach and talked about motherhood. We joked that her son and my daughter to be would meet and fall in love and we would finally get to be related. When my first editor died, she was my guiding light about the direction of my writing. When her personal life took a dive, I offered what I could. You get the idea here. We have always been there for each other, as writers, as women, as friends, as people connected at some deeper level.
Because our spiritual and creative foundations are so similar, we share a common language, a common vision. We have always been spiritual sisters. When we drop into each other’s lives, magic happens, synchronicity abounds. We know that without writers, there would be no publishing industry, no agents, no TV, no movies, nothing. It all begins with storytelling.
Today, I got an email from Nancy about her newest novel – The Scent of Rain and Lightning. It has hit The List, the only list that really matters to writers, the New York Times. It comes in at #19 on the extended list. “It’s only taken 30 years,” she wrote.
Thirty years. Think about that for a moment. Three decades of typing, of churning out stories. Thirty years and so much inner work, tweaking of beliefs, paying attention to your dreams, interpreting them, taking your cues from those dreams. And, ultimately, it took believing it could happen, that her work was powerful enough to compete. The Scent of Rain and Lightning is proof of a writer at the apex of her talents. The book is magnificent.
The message for the rest of us is simple. It all begins with belief.If you don’t believe in yourself, in your skills and talents, no one else will believe, either. It may not be as simple as the law of attraction, but that’s a great place to start.
Way to go, Nancita! No one deserves it more.
