Ready to Move Forward

After a month or so of dithering — trying out this notion, that notion — I’ve committed myself to the book I intend to write next. Indeed, I’ve already rewritten it twenty times. I’m trying to define my voice. I am trying to define my main character. Trying to grasp a sense of what I’ll be writing. Indeed, trying to shape (in my head) the plot. All standard for me.

I’m ready to move forward. Sort of.

You might think with some eighty-seven publications on my resume, this should be a stroll in the park. You might think I have had so much experience — good experience — that I should be able to slide right along. 

Not so.

I can think of many reasons for my unease.

The world of publishing — at least as I have known it — has changed a great deal.

I’m being told that middle school books are having trouble in the market. One reason offered: the way books are sold has changed drastically. I have heard one insider say, “Publishing no longer knows how to sell books. They have been flattened by the steamroller that is Amazon.”

The old ways of marketing — in person — have given way to social media, with authors being asked to lead the way — and do the work. That requires whole new skills, which I’m not sure I have. Or want to have.

I know of a sixteen-year-old girl who has been hired to track down “influencers” as a means to sell books.

A long-time publisher recently wrote to me: “People [in publishing] are totally on edge! There’s an environment where there is no margin for error and all the talk is of optimization and streamlining, which are all terrible things for creativity and occupations that need relationships, connection, and time.”

Another business insider (not a writer) with years of publishing experience tells me that “The editors are all overworked. They have no time for ……”

This has given rise to caution about taking risks — one of the things that used to give publishers the capacity to unearth and develop new talent.

Indeed, the whole process of publishing — at least in children’s book publishing — has slowed down, evidence of that caution.

And I do not doubt that the recent political attacks on books, schools, and libraries (including teachers and librarians) have made these buyers of books for institutions very cautious, perhaps timid.

Then too, as elsewhere in society, the pandemic caused all kinds of shifts, ways of working, and ways of being. Writing and publishing are not immune. One result: There doesn’t seem to be (looking in from the outside), the bonding collegiality in publishing houses that there once was.

Beyond all that, there is the simple truth that it is always hard — for me anyway — to start a new book. 

It’s a little like walking along the edge of the Grand Canyon, knowing I have to get across to the other side. I have to find a trail and then follow it to the bottom, then up the other side.

Or I can simply ignore all of the above—maybe these are just excuses, and I need to just settle down and write the best book I can. Maybe it’s that simple.

Wish me well and luck. Writers need it.