From Probably Not to Potentially Yes

Photo credit: Antti Kyllönen on Flickr

It’s November 24, 2014, and a year ago today I did not have an agent or a book deal.

A year ago today I was a writer with a bunch of queries out, and one agent with my full manuscript, and I was jumping at every e-mail, and resting after finishing NaNoWriMo early, and I had absolutely no idea that I was weeks away from getting The Call.

So much has changed in a year.

After writing (and trunking) manuscript after manuscript, I’ve kind of had to adjust to a new method of thinking. It used to be, when I wrote, that most of the time I assumed chances were likely no one would ever see it (while not the case for everyone, this kind of thinking is somewhat inevitable when you trunk as many manuscripts as I did). And in a way, that was safe. It meant it didn’t matter how good or bad the manuscript was, how much work it would potentially need, whether the idea was overdone or the characters were weak or what-have-you, none of that mattered. It was freeing, in a way, to write thinking that nothing mattered because chances were likely no one would see it.

Things are different now. And I love that they’re different—really, honestly and truly, I do—but it’s been a weird shift.

Now I’ve gone from probably no one will see this to any one of these could potentially be published. And I mean, that’s not to say I can’t trunk a manuscript if I don’t like it or don’t think it’ll work (I definitely can), but going from probably not to potentially yes has been so so strange.

After trunking nine manuscripts in a row, I’ve got one on its way to you guys (yay!) and three more in my revising queue. And I obviously don’t know for sure that any of the ones I’m working on are going to get published (or even go on submission, for that matter), but each one of them is a potentially yes and that just totally blows my mind.

And you know? Weird as it is, I'm so thankful for the shift. While it’s sometimes terrifying, it’s also ridiculously exciting, and I’m so psyched to share my stories with my CPs and incredible agent and hopefully, eventually, you.

Probably not was a safe place to grow and learn and develop my writing, and I’m absolutely thankful for that stage in my writing journey.

But now that potentially yes is here? I couldn’t be more grateful.

What are you grateful for this year? 

Twitter-sized bites: 

Post agent and book deal, @Ava_Jae shares a shift in the way she sees her WIPs. (Click to tweet) 

Writer @Ava_Jae shares one big thing she's grateful for this year. What are you grateful for this year? (Click to tweet)