On making things and putting them into the world
If a tree falls and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If a person writes a book and no one reads it, does it exist? For most creatives, you are free to make what you like and then what you have made exists. You can sell it, exhibit it, hang it on your wall, but for the writer, it can seem that the thing you have laboured over for months or years doesn’t exist until someone else says it is good enough.
But a rejection from a publisher is just one person’s opinion and, at the end of the day, a publisher is a business. The bottom line for them is, ‘Will it sell?’ Realising this was so liberating for me. But of course, as a writer you don’t start out writing thinking about what will sell, you start out with what you have to say.
Make Stuff
After my last batch of poems were rejected for being ‘good, but not quite good enough’, I was left with a nagging dissatisfaction. I felt that they were still valid and that I wanted them to exist in the world. So I started working on some visual representations of the poems. And in the zine/graphic novel world, it is the done thing to make a collection and to get it out there. I did a print run of 100 of There You Are and it felt so good to have my poems being read and absorbed, circulating in the real world.
May Sarton, in her fantastic book, Journey of a Solitude says ‘the gift turned inward, unable to be given, becomes a heavy burden, even sometimes a kind of poison. It is as though the flow of life were backed up’, and I can’t emphasise enough how true this feels in my life. It feels great to be a maker, to hold something in my hand that I can give away or sell. It’s a little bit like standing naked, holding out your heart on a platter, admittedly, but it still feels real, and worthwhile and I am glad for it.
My Journey
My journey to being a self-published writer has looked like this. I wrote my first novel on my MA, which I sent out to agents and got some kind rejections. I then sent it away for a manuscript critique and hid it away for six years because I didn’t know what to do next. We moved to Shropshire, I kept writing. I self-released There You Are in 2017 and I felt happy. People liked my poems and they told me so. I released Circles, a discussion on creativity in 2019. People were encouraged by my writing and they told me. Again, I felt happy. I felt like my writing was doing something useful. Then, during lockdown, I started writing and posting one gratitude poem each day to my social media page and then I ran a Kickstarter campaign to get the book (Voice at the Window) into print.
Query Trenches
In 2021, I thought I had better take a shot at being a proper writer again. I worked on a manuscript, rewrote it, tightened it, sent it out to agents only to get rejection after rejection and I felt utterly miserable. Here was something that I had poured thousands of hours into and I was really pleased with, and yet I was being told no, time and time again.
Yes there is a time for polishing/redrafting/reworking but also there comes a point where you have to move on to the next step. Either, you believe the novel hasn’t worked as you intended, and you retire it to rework in the future, or you affirm that it has worked as you had intended but for whatever reason, mainstream publishing has deemed it unmarketable and turned it down. But it is still your book, and you have a choice over what comes next. You can still put it out in the world.
And do you know what? Life is short.
I would much rather that *some* people read my book than no one read my book so into the world it will go next month, and I am happy with my lot.
So, dear creative one, don’t wait for permission to put your creations into the world. Sure it’s vulnerable but it’s also real. Sometimes I think about how I feel writing is my vocation in life, and then I wonder why I’m not making more money from it if it is! But it is not so simple as that. Lewis Hyde in The Gift reminds us that in a ‘market society’ where ‘getting rather than giving is the mark of a substantial person […] a disquieting sense of triviality, worthlessness even, will nag the man or woman who labors in the service of a gift and whose products are not adequately described as commodities’. Creative gifts operate on a different plane.
Waiting on Gatekeepers
Don’t wait for the gatekeeper to say yes, mow the gates down, and put your small and beautiful things out into the world. Because your words might give permission to others. Sometimes it has nothing to do with money, it is just about taking the next step forward on your path. Who knows what your words are doing out there in the world.
What is your true north? Where are you heading? Take the next step in that direction.
Goals
I’ve talked about this before, but when you are setting goals, do not put your life in someone else’s hands, but give yourself that joy. Instead of saying ‘I’ll buy that new dress when I get an agent’, say ‘I’ll buy that new dress when I finish this draft.’ You are in control of that, and you can make it happen.
I feel so strongly about this because I have spent so much of my writing life waiting. Waiting for someone to get back to me, anxiously checking my inbox over and over again, doubting the small voice inside me that whispered, just do it yourself.
Murmuration
All of this leads me nicely to the fact that I have launched a Kickstarter campaign for Murmuration, my YA dystopian novel!
Murmuration is a Young Adult dystopia with a touch of magic. It has crossover appeal so adults and young adults alike will be drawn into Jay and Fee’s world… If you like birds, magic, high-stakes adventure, and a little love thrown in, then you’ll love Murmuration!
An early review:
‘It’s extraordinary, quite unlike anything I’ve read before. Partly science fiction, partly a reworking of Lord of the Flies, partly contemporary social and political commentary, partly fantasy, partly a eulogy to the wild landscape of the Essex coast.’ Peter W.
If you like the sound of it and want to get involved by preordering your paperback or ebook, then head over here to become a backer!
Thanks so much for reading creative ones,
Elisabeth xxx
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elisabeth pike 