A Writer’s Guide to New Year’s Resolutions

It’s that time again – the day we promise things we know two months from now, most of us won’t cross off. The day we flood agent’s mailboxes with query letters. The month we go so hard, we thank God for telling us to get our flu shot because we would’ve been hospitalized by now.

Stop. Deep breaths. Hold it. Exhale.

You good? OK, let me tell you something. I have a different approach to 2015. It’s called the Year of You, and it begins with not caring so much.

Have you ever found that you produce your best work when you don’t think so much about what you are doing? It happens to me all the time. I wrote the first draft of UNFORTUNATES in a month – one pure brain dump with no looking back at the green and red squiggly lines. Sure there was some wine involved and some scenes were thrown out immediately on the read-through but for the most part, it was great thought-vomit.

It had voice. It had flair. It had me.

So write whatever you want. Remember: it can always be fixed.

Too often we are consumed in what others think. We check our sales constantly, read our reviews and stew, evil eye our rejection letters, and mentally stab editors through the screen for slashing one more of our best. sentences. EVER.

But you know what? When you take away all that negativity and actually accept and embrace other people’s feedback and ideas, you grow. You evolve. You succeed.

Writing is already a solitary activity. Don’t make it more so by shutting everyone out. Last year (I can say that now, right?), I helped my critique partner land an agent. They are currently working through revisions right now to go on submission later this year. That feeling of helping someone else is so uplifting. It shows me that it can happen, it is obtainable and it may be in my future as well. Karma has a way of paying us back one way or another, so always put your best foot forward.

Be positive. Be supportive, both to yourself and others. Remember: The Internet is not a personal soap box or your personal battle ground. Anyone can find whatever they want about you. Be you, but be your best you.

Lastly, believe that anything is possible. 

Two years ago, I was in a dungeon I like to call writer’s depression. It’s a dark and scary place. Your imagination shuts down, your fingers can’t type or hold a pen, and when they do they freeze up. You start to listen to all of the business babble: I like it but it won’t sell, paranormal is dead, only the best of the best will succeed, you’ll get eaten alive out there in Amazon land, you’ll fail, etc.

Each rejection letter and un-responded submission added an extra five pounds to my shoulders. I let it get to me so much, I lost six months of doing the thing I love the most because I was soooo scared to fail.

And then I attended Writer’s Digest East Conference and started meeting with people in the industry over coffee (ex agents, trad. and self-publishers). And I saw with my own eyes that agents were people too – just as nervous as the attending authors. They don’t want to break our hearts – they aren’t sitting at their computers with devious grins and rubbing palms waiting to crush all hopes and dreams. They don’t even always know best, and many of them admit it when you sit down and talk to them.

They are people just like you and me, doing a job that they may or may not like. Just like you and me slave away at a day job we’d rather not be at, some agents feel the exact same way.

It’s a stressful job, and many of them don’t particularly like breaking hearts and even failing at submitting to publishers once they pick up a great book they believe in.

So while it may look a certain way from the corner you’ve backed yourself into, please try (in any situation, not just the one above) to see it from the opposite extreme. Believe that it can be possible because it can.

This industry is not a race. It’s something you build over time. It’s something that can help you succeed if you respect it. Don’t let negativity and doubt cripple you before you start. Find another way because there is always more than one way to skin a cat.

Believe. You can do it.