Blog Chain: Unexpected Occurrences

Time for–you guessed it–another blog chain! Today’s post comes from Sarah. She asks:

“What has been the most unexpected part of your writing journey up to this point? What has happened that you could never have predicted? Has it been a help or a hindrance?”

Tell you what. This is a great question. But I have no answer for it. I didn’t EXPECT anything when I started out on this journey. I had HOPES and DREAMS, but EXPECTATIONS? Nope. I knew nothing about the mechanics of the field when I started out. I began my journey first by freelancing for newspapers and magazines. I was told I would never be published in big magazines. I was told you had to know people. I kept querying and proved people wrong. The same thing happened when I was working on my novels. Yes, the first was rejected, but not because I didn’t know anyone. Agents who never heard of me read and responded to my query. It’s the manuscript that needed work. I found ABLA with my second manuscript, now called INCONVENIENT. I queried, was asked to send my manuscript, it was embraced. Yay!

But all this time I didn’t know how the publishing game worked, and it’s best I didn’t. If I had known you don’t find a house who wants you first time out of the gate, I would have worried before I needed to. If I had known getting an agent doesn’t mean instant publication, I would have agonized and missed out on the WAHOO feelings of joy and jumping around and feeling giddy. If I had known all the revisions involved before your manuscript even makes the rounds of submissions to houses, I would have whooped even less. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

And now that I know what lies ahead, I can be more prepared. And appreciate the rewards that much more.

Check out Michelle’s post from yesterday and Laura’s post tomorrow for their great expectations.