The phrase ‘Writing Twitter’ needs to stop using
Plus: I released a debut novel in 2020 and botched the follow-up. Could I have done it on purpose?
If you follow any writers on Twitter, there’s a chance you’ve come across the phrase, “in the trenches.” It’s a phrase writers use to refer to the process of querying their books. To get a book published, you need an agent. To find an agent, you have to query, which means sending emails. Lots and lots of emails. It’s a tedious and often disappointing process, as the response to most of those emails is “no thanks” -- if you get a response at all. Querying is a hard slog that rewards only a lucky few.
Having said all that…come on, guys. You are not in a trench, you’re at a keyboard. You’re not inhaling mustard gas, you’re drinking a latte. And you’re not saving the free world, you’re trying to sell a book. So, tone down the language a bit, maybe?
While I don’t like the phrase, I do understand the sentiment behind it.
After I published my debut novel in 2020, I realized how much better it is to be writing a novel rather than trying to sell one. Before I landed my publishing contract with Running Wild Press, I talked to some industry insiders who told me that getting published with a small press makes it easier to get an agent. However, I sometimes get a sinking feeling that publishing my second book won’t be any easier than it was the first time around.
A writer I know released a beautiful short story collection, but when she penned a quirky novel, her agent hated it so much, that she had to find a new agent before the book could see the light of day.
It’s brutal out there.
When Tough Love at Mystic Bay came out, I knew I wanted my next novel to be about women’s baseball. There’s so much more to the history of the women’s baseball leagues than just A League of Their Own. But I didn’t have a story in mind for this new novel -- all I knew was that I didn’t want to end up recreating A League of Their Own.
So I did my research. I read books. I scoured the AAGBPL website. I discovered a second women’s league called the National Girls Baseball League based in and around Chicago. One of the league’s managers was Buck Weaver, one of the infamous Black Sox, banned from baseball for life for fixing the 1919 World Series. I discovered that this Chicago league supposedly paid more than the AAGBPL and I wanted to know why all the players didn’t just jump ship.
I traveled to South Bend, Indiana, where the History Museum has a permanent collection of AAGBPL memorabilia. I met with the historians who answered my questions and let me look through old scrapbooks where I found the answer to my question: in 1951, the AAGBPL league commissioner grew tired of players switching between the leagues and decreed that any player who left to play for the Chicago league would be banned for life from playing with the AAGBPL.
And yet, even though I had these great bits of history, boy did I make a mess of the novel. I’ve never been one for making outlines. I started Mystic Bay with the basic sketch of an outline, but for the most part, I figured it out as I went along. I thought I’d figure out the story for my baseball novel on the fly too, but it just didn’t work out that way. The writing became a chore. I forced myself to finish it, then shelved it and moved on to something else.
Now, I wonder: did I do this on purpose? Did I sabotage that book just so I could put off facing the realities of publishing?
I don’t know. It’s not like you can choose not to have an idea, right? Plus, I’ve since come up with a great idea for this book. I don’t know how much of the writing I’ll be able to salvage, but the research will pay off. Maybe I didn’t subconsciously shoot myself in the foot. Maybe I just got ahead of my subconscious.
For the moment I’m working on something else, something I’m very excited about. This time, the writing is really flowing and I’m actually having fun when I sit down to work on it. I’m turning a story I previously published, “The Beef Trust Chorus,” into a novel that will have the same name. I am optimistic, but cautiously so.
As long as I’m writing, I can keep the frustrations, disappointments and grind of getting published at bay.
For now.