When the Dream Hits a Snag

“A wounded deer leaps the highest.”

    Emily Dickinson

As soon as we get the hang of dreaming a writerly life, we’re on our way to making it a reality. Without a vision for the future, we just kind of let whatever happens happen – and it usually doesn’t.

There we are, taking baby steps. Seeing progress. Feeling pretty good about our sweet selves. Am I right?

We reach milestones. That first story gets published on an online venue. An editor at a conference shows interest in that proposal. An agent decides to take a chance on us. We finish that first draft, and it isn’t bad. At all. 

And then – smack. 

The second story gets rejected or the first one gets a bad review. A new editor takes the place of the one who liked your work and just can’t seem to find it in her pile. The agent decides to whittle down his client list and you’re the first to go. That great first draft is stalled because a tree falls on your garage and all your energy goes into dealing with the insurance people and you just can’t seem to reconnect with your characters. 

The dream has hit a snag. 

How do we respond gracefully?

I go into this in detail on this week’s podcast — Episode #9, “Shifting: When It’s Time To Tweak Your Writing Dream” – so I won’t repeat it all here. Instead, let’s focus on one aspect.

When a dream gets waylaid, it’s both natural and easy to cast blame. Most of the time, that delay in the realization of our vision is due to something out of our control. We write the best we have in us. We learn and grow and expand our creativity. We do everything right. We know what we’ve accomplished is dang good. 

So, no, it isn’t our fault that agent will only look at potential clients who have 10,000 followers on TikTok, even though studies have shown that has no correlation whatsoever to book sales. 

We can’t be considered culpable when a reviewer has hemorrhoids and takes it out on our actually quite stellar story. 

We are not responsible for natural disasters and changes in personnel.

So yeah, we have a right to rail and vent and even toss out an F-bomb or two. But just because we have the right to doesn’t mean it’s going to be helpful. We also have the right to turn left on that green arrow, but if somebody’s blowing through the red light, being right isn’t going to prevent a collision. 

Set a statute of limitations on the wallowing

Do we need to express our disappointment? You’re dang right we do! So much about writing and publishing is frustrating and not fair. If we say that doesn’t bother us, we’re not being honest with ourselves. 

So, yeah, have a little pity party. Maybe invite some fellow Scribblies. Open a box of Godiva chocolates and consume the whole thing. 

If you’re really ticked off, write a diatribe in your journal and then burn it. Throw your kids’ stuffed animals across the room until you don’t have to. Have yourself an ugly cry.

And then put your big girl panties on and move on to the next phase.

Now is the time for integrity

Being professional about a setback is the sign of a mature creative. How we do one thing is usually how we do everything. If we behave with grace in this, we’ll do the same when we get that contract and have to negotiate the advance. When the first bad Amazon review comes out and we have to decide how or even whether to respond. When we’re asked an unethical question on a podcast and we need to make a seat-of-the-pants decision.

In other words, let’s start now being the gracious, professional women we are. It will pay off.

May I suggest not taking your invective about editors, publishers, agents, and reviewers onto social media? Not badmouthing same at writers’ conferences? Not telling your story ad nauseam to your writers’ group? Trust me, it will come back to bite you in the bun-buns.

Finally, blaming isn’t creative

It really doesn’t nurture our creativity to vent and complain and whine and want to “cancel” people. It only makes us bitter and negative, and we can’t think for a minute that doesn’t carry over into our work. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to read that, and I sure don’t want to write it.

We are so much better than that. I mean seriously. We have class. We have faith. We can shed the tear and then look at what might be possible given these new circumstances. 

Yeah. That’s what you call being a Scribbling Woman.

A Thought To Ponder:

What is the classiest, most professional response you can have to your most recent dream snag? You are going to like this about you.

Until next time …

Scribble on!