We All Failed
In Which We Realize That's a Good Thing, and See Lots of Red, Too š
Ventorship Passengers! Sailors? Shipmates? Seamen (hehe)? What do we call ourselves aboard the Ventorship? Regardless, I am so unbelievably happy you are here. I canāt tell you how blown away I was by the support from other authors on my last post. It just really hit home that weāve all been craving a place where we can feel less alone and look at each other like, āYouāre seeing the same thing Iām seeing, right?ā even though weāre all holed away in our own separate writing caves in our favorite brand of dirty clothing. Thatās the kind of connection Iām here for!
And it seems the universe was ready and waiting to whisk us off our lonely author islands because right when I was thinking of starting this new direction for my newsletter, the hysterical, brilliant, and prolific Jesse Q. Sutanto posted this epic instagram post:
This is a list of all the manuscripts Jesse has written since 2010, with the highlighted items being those that sold. First of all, holy moly Jesse is a writing machine! Second, youāve got to go and read Jesseās caption because she shows us that getting to twenty completed manuscripts wasnāt all easy breezy. The big take away is: she didnāt stop writing. Even if there were massive gaps between stories, or life stressors, or manuscripts that took longer to write than expected. She kept going.
Jesseās post took off as Iām sure youāve seen, another testament to how weāve all been craving this author connection through shared experience. So many of us posted our own manuscript lists, baring our souls and including those stories that were shelved or set adrift at sea. Hereās mine:
I started writing novels utterly CONVINCED I was going to write middle grade fantasy. But five years of writing and three complete (and completely rejected) manuscripts later, that wasnāt in the cards. Then I pivoted, sticking with the fantasy route and writing OUT OF THE BLUE, but totally different from what we know today. It followed two merpeople who were so UNBELIEVABLY ANGSTY and full of FEELINGS and in the endā¦MERPEOPLE DIED šµ
Needless to say, that went nowhere. I just needed to embrace the level of camp and light-heartedness that *is* Jason June and thatās when JAYāS GAY AGENDA sold. I know I wrote that in one throwaway sentence like it was no big deal, but really, there were many moments in the process of writing JGA that sucked. I was so disheartened after four failed manuscripts, so frustrated, so jealous of other authors who I knew I could fit right alongside if I was just given the chance (oooh author jealousy; definitely something we should talk about sometime).
But the beautiful thing this trend showed was that weāve all been there. Literally, every single post I saw proudly displayed shelved manuscripts. These could be considered failures, or maybe they were the stories we had to write for our subconscious to get ready to deliver the manuscripts that would change our lives.
What I love most about the trend Jesse started was it wasnāt meant to be a trend at all. I asked her what the spark was to post that list of manuscripts, and she said the spark was āso boring.ā After finishing her most recent manuscript, she wrote the list to refresh her memory as to how many stories sheād completed. Then she posted and voila! Instant connection opportunity for thousands of authors! Not to sound too cheesy (but come on, Iām me), I love that so much. I love how we were all grateful to Jesse for opening the door to talk about what weāve been through, and relive those days of thinking we might never be published so we could really see how far weāve come, or for pre-published authors to see their books are truly just around the corner.
To be even a little more vulnerable, I wanted to share sublists with you here, to demonstrate just how many times we can get told no. Iāve deleted editor names because I donāt want anyone to think Iām calling them out when not everybody has to like my books (spoiler: lots of people didnāt! And donāt!), but all these red lines are the times Iāve been rejected since 2014 (when I got my first agent), and the light orangish-brown are rejections because we just never heard back on the submission. Ready to scroll? I apologize in advance if you hate the color red š¬
245 rejections (if my count is right) across novels (YA, MG, and Adult) and picture books, through multiple rounds of submission, most with completed manuscripts, a couple with pitches consisting of a synopsis and sample pages. Thatās a hell of a lot of no.
But, despite all the redāas Jesseās list and my list and all those other lists showāyouāll get those yeses (for my records, an accepted offer gets coated in PINK). Yet, itās so easy for us to get weighed down by the shelved manuscripts, by all the nos. Itās such a punch to the gut, even though every single author throughout all of time has heard no most likely hundreds, if not thousands, of times. So Iāve decided whenever I go on submission, Iām going to keep an up-to-date tally here of all the times Iām turned down, to give that gentle reminder that weāre all hearing it, and youāre not a failure when someone doesnāt want to publish your books.
Just add that no to the list. Itās getting you one step closer to the yes. Or, at the very least, itās reminding you that weāre all in the same boat ā¤ļø
-JJ
Since launching the Ventorship, Iāve received a few emails from authors venting, and those posts will be up in the coming weeks! If youād like to vent about anything author/writing related, write to me at heyjasonjune@gmail.com with the subject: VENTORSHIP. Iāll give you my take in a post, and weāll crowdsource author opinions in the comments. Youāll remain anonymous, and any haters will be thrown overboard. Ultimately, I think youāre going to be buoyed up by the boatload of author love and support š³ļø
This is amazing! Did I count every single one of those red and orange-brown lines? Maybeeee. Thank you for sharing!