Bumps in the Road (Part 1)

Orphaned

About a month after my Publishers Marketplace deal announcement, my acquiring editor sent me an email telling me she was leaving the imprint. It was a very kind email, thoughtful and empathetic, but it didn’t matter. A big pit yawned open in my stomach as I processed what she was telling me.

I’d been orphaned. 

The person who had read and loved my book, who cared enough to fight for it in acquisitions meetings, who had invested her time creating a P&L statement, a brief for the cover designer, and an eight-page edit letter; the only person at Hyperion Ave I had ever actually spoken to in the months since I’d received my offer—my champion—was leaving her job.

Leaving me.

I texted my agent with numb thumbs. “Oh fuck!” I wrote. “How bad is this on a scale of 1-10?”

CeCe couldn’t answer. Instead, she told me that editors leaving isn’t rare, and that there are too many variables still in play to know how it will affect me and my book. Who will take over as cheerleader? As editor? Who will take charge of publicity and marketing? Where will I land? 

It was too soon to say.

I’m an optimistic person—it’s optimism that kept me writing after my first book died on submission, that pushed me through the querying process after my first agent ghosted me, and that urged me to keep trying, to do my best, to focus on my goal, my work, no matter how hard it got. But being orphaned? 

It knocked the hope right out of me. 

I had read and listened to too many horror stories not to panic. This was bad. Really, really bad.

Oliver Twist, by Harold Copping (1924)

CeCe and I spoke on the phone, and she stopped me from spiraling too far. This doesn’t have to be a catastrophe, she said. Unfortunately, it is normal. I felt a little better, but I still crawled into a 2-day reality TV binge, staying in bed and watching a lot of Vanderpump Rules. (Thank the gods for Scandoval, the most distracting distraction ever—IYKYK.) 

Eventually, though, I had to get up. It was early December and I had a Zoom call with my new (foster?) editor, who happened to be the managing editor at the imprint. I was nervous. CeCe had me write a list of questions to ask so I could feel prepared, but the only thing I really wanted to know was not something I could just ask—

Is everything going to be okay?

The call went so much better than I expected—which is perhaps the best thing about being a catastrophizer: things are generally not as terrible as you think.

Relatable!

My new editor assured me that he’d read my book when it came in on sub, and he liked the story and my voice. He’d gone to art school and understood my artist characters in a way not everyone could. The strangest part, he lived within driving distance from me in Colorado. We agreed to meet for breakfast sometime in the new year, after I had submitted my draft.

My draft! In the tumult of being orphaned, I had been too distracted to work. But now, I had a plan. I had something to do. My optimism creeped back. It was all going to be okay. I had an emergency meeting with my writing partners, who gave me fresh notes. CeCe did, too. I pushed my book further than I thought I could, and then further still. I controlled the only thing I was able to control for the next few weeks—my words.

I sent in my draft when I said I would, a few days after Christmas, from a bedroom in my parents’ house in Ohio. Despite the chaos there, the noise of kids and a big extended family’s holiday celebrations and the anxiety of being orphaned, I had persisted. I had done my job. Somebody make me a cocktail.

A month later, when I met my new editor IRL, I thought we would be discussing my book over pancakes and coffee. This, I realize now, was terribly naive. He hadn’t gotten to it yet, he said, letting me down gently. He had his own projects to tend to, as well as the other orphans my acquiring editor had left him. Books that are coming out a full six months before mine. As a consolation prize, he gave me a bag full of Hyperion Ave books, and told me he needed another month. We spent the rest of the time talking about Scandoval, and I went back to waiting.

And waiting…

And…

Enough of this. I had to think about something else. I reminded myself of the 75/25 rule I tell my son when he is in the hospital. It’s my atheist version of the serenity prayer: About 75% of life is up to you, and the other 25% just happens. Focus on the 75% you can control.

I had already turned in my draft, so that was, for the time being, out of my control. I had my newsletter (thanks, you guys!). I had my option materials to work on, too, and I got cracking on those edits. I did a lot of procrastisearching, and finally committed to a mini #1000words to jumpstart my work in progress. 

I was chugging along quite nicely…. until an email came this past Monday. And it wasn’t my line notes.

Stay tuned for Bumps in the Road (Part 2) coming next week.

Photo by Robin Jonathan Deutsch on Unsplash

In the meantime, because publishing is a wild ride unlike anything else, and because I’ve emailed CeCe at least 10,000 times asking the same question—

IS THIS NORMAL?

— we’ve decided to open the conversation up to you. If you are a writer asking yourself that question, or if you are traditionally published author who asked that question in the past, we want to hear from you!

Email thisdebutlife@gmail.com with your question or story. Will will do our best to answer (or crowd source answers) for you and to share the stories (and their answers) with the goal of making publishing more transparent. We promise to keep you anonymous.