I’m thrilled to share a guest post from author Kathleen Marple Kalb. Her debut came out as we were all navigating the 2020 lockdown. It didn’t get any easier for Kathleen from there, but she pushed through and continued to write and publish. She shares her tips for surviving whatever this crazy business throws at you.
Take a deep breath and hang on. It’s what Leo says to Kate just before the ship goes down in Titanic, and it’s great advice if you’re starting a publishing career these days, because the things you thought simply could not happen, will. Kind of like the unsinkable ship. At least, that’s been my experience. Sure, my perspective may be a teensy bit skewed by an April 2020 debut – yep, right in those terrifying first weeks of lockdown – but the point is still good. You need to be ready for anything…because anything can, and will, happen.
What does that really mean, in terms of how you structure your career as a writer? Well, just as in a real-life disaster, it’s all about maximizing your chances of survival. After three trips through the querying trenches, pitching, signing, severing, submitting, selling – and then getting dropped and doing it all again, I’ve learned some hard lessons about survival. The biggest one is the hardest: a lot of it is beyond your control and has nothing to do with you.
No matter how great a writer you are, you can’t control the impact of world events. Or large societal shifts. You also can’t control your publisher, editor, or agent’s marketing focus, financial health, or life events. Any or all of those could scuttle your career, or at least your first bite at the apple. And there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s not pessimism. It’s reality. Life happens. The realization is actually very freeing. Once you accept there are a lot of things going on out there that have nothing to do with you as a writer, you’re free to focus on the things you do control.
You’re also free to stop taking every rejection as some kind of judgment on you. Rejections happen for any number of reasons – see above! – and many, many of them have nothing to do with you. That understanding makes it much easier to see the true message of any given rejection: “No, today,” on one piece of work. That’s all. Don’t give it more power than it deserves. Instead, worry about the things you can control.
My “day job” as a radio news anchor is a real help here. When I prepare for each on-air shift, I make sure I’ve set up everything I can: stories written, commercials in place, studio organized, so when breaking news happens, as it inevitably does, I can deal with it. Same idea applies in a writing career: worry about the things you can control and handle the crazy stuff as it comes.
What you can control: doing good work, producing immaculate submissions, getting feedback, and being open to changes without losing your vision. Learning where and with whom to place that work –and best practices for marketing it once it’s published. And, last, but certainly not least, not doing dumb things. As in, don’t get out of the lifeboat. Be as much of a pro as you possibly can. Make yourself known as the writer people want to work with because you’re easy and reasonable – not necessarily a pushover, but always polite and respectful, even when you disagree with something. Don’t pick a fight just for the sake of proving how important you are. Nobody wants to share the lifeboat with a jerk.
And that’s what this is really about. Making sure you’re the writer who deserves to survive. My grandpa used to say: “never give anyone a reason to weed you out.” Skill, savvy, and professional is won’t stop you from hitting the iceberg. But they might just help you stay afloat afterward. Take a deep breath and hang on, indeed!
Kathleen Marple Kalb describes herself as an Author/Anchor/Mom…not in that order. An award-winning weekend anchor at New York’s 1010 WINS Radio, she’s the author of short stories and novels including the Old Stuff and Ella Shane Mysteries. As Nikki Knight, she writes the Vermont Radio and Grace the Hit Mom series. Her stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, and many anthologies, and been short-listed for Derringer and Black Orchid Novella Awards. She’s served as Vice President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and Co-VP of the New York/Tri-State Sisters in Crime Chapter. She, her husband, and son live in a Connecticut house owned by their cat.
You said it perfectly about rejections. Best to not take it too personally!
Your advice mirrors that of a colleague I worked with during my professional career, “expect the ridiculous.” Once you expect that anything can happen, especially the nutty black swan evens, it makes it easier to take it in stride.