Welcome to This Debut Life

Where I will document the ups, downs, and panic attacks in the year leading up to my debut. Plus writing tips!

A year from now, Disney-Hyperion Avenue will publish the novel I began writing almost eight years ago. When I posted my Publisher’s Marketplace deal on Instagram, most of my friends and acquaintances had no idea it was coming, even though I’d gotten the offer over 10 months before and it wasn’t even my first full manuscript—or my first agent, or my first time out on sub. Still, very few people knew what I was up to.

There’s a reason for that: Before I got my book deal, I did not like to talk about my ambition—it seemed try-hard to the point of humiliation. Of course, if I failed (or, being realistic since this is publishing, when I failed), everyone I’d told would know. I think a lot of writers operate this way, hiding our creative projects, secretly toiling away, fiercely protective of our darlings. We don’t like to talk about rejection, or gutting edit letters, or the months of silence, or the monumental effort each step to publication requires. We want you to think we landed on the bookshelf wrapped in a pretty cover with a flattering headshot and a tight little bio. We want the world to believe it was easy.

But why? 

Ten years ago, I rushed through my first full-length manuscript, written in fits and starts in the early mornings before my job at an art gallery in Manhattan, then at my desk when no one was peering over my shoulder. (I was enormously pregnant with twins at the time, as out of place in Chelsea as a goat—so much so that when I reached my 7th month, they relocated my desk out of sight, to the back storage room for my comfort. At least they left me alone.) Manuscript “completed,” I didn’t know what to do next—how to get a good agent and land book deal. I didn’t know about Querytracker;

Courtney Maum

had not written BEFORE AND AFTER THE BOOK DEAL; there was no

The Shit About Writing Team

podcast. I lurked on Twitter and signed up for a writer’s conference that winter, where I met an agent at a panel. Days later, I queried her. She offered representation within two weeks. I asked no questions and did no research. I accepted.

With minimal editing, the manuscript went out on sub to a half-dozen editors the following spring. Shocker: No one wanted it. We pulled it, thinking maybe it could be fixed, but I had no idea where to begin, and my agent didn’t have advice. I panicked and ran away, leaving the manuscript to rot on my hard drive. Emails from my agent slowed, then stopped altogether. It didn’t matter. I had nothing to give her.

By 2016, everything in my life looked different. One of my twins was sick (often very sick, like months-in-the-hospital-at-a-time sick), and I was pregnant with my third child. Maybe because of the bombshell of my son’s illnesses, or of motherhood, or of being stripped of my decade-long career in the art world, there was a scene in my head I couldn’t get rid of. The scene had to do with fear and shock and instability, in relationships, in careers, and in the broader world. It had to do with growing up, with me and my friends when we were young and free and drama-prone, experiencing the world we’d always know fall to pieces. Fifteen years after 9/11, I couldn’t stop thinking about that day, my own past self on that day—where in the city I’d gone, whom I’d talked to, what I smelled, what music was playing on my CD player, what I wore and ate and drank. I was obsessed with the tiny, specific lives in New York that were interrupted by those planes—and then, how we kept going.

I wrote the first chapter of what would become TELL THEM YOU LIED, then shut my laptop, thinking it was enough to purge the scene from my mind. For another handful of years, that chapter sat alongside my first manuscript in my documents folder, nagging at me. I carried that chapter with me as my family and I moved out of New York—first to Los Angeles, then to Colorado. My kids finally went to school, and I felt myself getting older, and it terrified me that I still hadn’t done the only thing I ever wanted to do, which was sell a book. My ambition was still there, no matter how much time passed or how much I tried to ignore it. Eventually, after a painful battle, the ambition won. I picked apart my first book until I saw what was wrong: I could write a sentence no problem, a scene, a vignette, sure— but I had no idea about structure, plot, or pacing. 

I did not know how to write a story.

I had to teach myself. I joined workshops and classes, read craft books, and listened to podcasts, and when I came back to that first chapter of TELL THEM YOU LIED, in 2019, I came armed with information. Still, it was goddamn hard. It took a year to write an exploratory draft, a year to edit that draft, months more to get an agent, and even more months to, finally, sell it. Right now, in January 2024, seven and a half years since I wrote the first chapter, I’m still waiting on line edits. I’m still working on my story.

It’s true that there are no shortcuts, but I believe that if my ambition had not given me the ick for so long, if I had given myself permission to embrace it earlier, I could have found my way here a lot sooner than I did. At 46, I am still a year out from my debut, but I’m not embarrassed anymore. I’m going to tell you all about it, and in return, I want to hear your stories, too—how you’ve dealt with creative ambition, how you’ve pushed through ick and embarrassment, how you’ve persevered, and continue to do so no matter how many nos you’ve gotten. 

My plan with this newsletter is to break down my publishing experience as it happens, with links to helpful podcasts and articles, tips on editing, and other good stuff for writers that I’ve picked up along the way. One year, 365 days (-ish, since I don’t yet know my exact pub date ), the ups and the downs, the fun and the tedious—the truth—because I want to erase the stigma of creative effort, for myself and for anyone who might relate, because this shit is hard. 

If you’re published, I want to know how you did it. If you’re debuting soon, let’s compare notes. If you’re in the querying trenches, I want to hear your story. If you don’t know how to finish your manuscript, or how to pick an agent, or how to survive being on sub, I want to talk. Leave a message in the comments. Let me know your story, and what topics you think I should cover.

Up next: The Trenches (Notes on Patience, Querying, and Being on Sub)

Until then, thanks for reading.

Laura