Lessons From an Agent & Author in 2019
2019 was a strange year for me.
My wife and I moved back to Philadelphia after several years away, our squirmy baby was suddenly a wildly energetic toddler, and we learned how to navigate this whole parenting thing.
The agent life has had some wild highs and some painful low points, as is the way of publishing. I’ve found myself refocusing how I work, thanks to my wonderfully supportive colleagues. In my writing life, I ended the year seeing ARCs for Don’t Read the Comments (out next month!), found myself with two new books publishing in 2021, a story in an anthology publishing next year, and one that’s in bookstores this year, in Color Outside the Lines by Sangu Mandanna.
It’s been busy and a ride. And along the way, there have been some interesting lessons that make up a lot of what this year was all about.
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If You’re Going to Thrive, Close Your Laptop
Over the summer, I published this little piece on Publishing Crawl about trying to figure out what having “discipline” even meant to me anymore. I was wildly unhappy, something I seldom admit to anyone. I was raised to take whatever I’m feeling and just ball it up nice and tight, and shove it down inside my chest someplace. Which is great for social media, where you can perform, but not great for in real life, when the stage comes crashing down.
I’d been fighting with a novel draft and nothing was happening. The well was dry. I wasn’t really going out, and I was super busy with work, staying up late into the evening battling with the page. And that was a problem.
I was surprised to see that the blog resonated with so many people. If you’re going to thrive creatively, take a break. A breather. Remember that there is more out there than the book you’re working on. Sometimes it can genuinely feel like there isn’t anything else. Push right by that. There is. It’s waiting for you, and it’ll inspire your craft.
And it’ll make you happy.
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Send the Elevator Down (Even When it Skips Your Floor on the Way Back Up)
One of my favorite people in the publishing industry, Dongwon Song, had a great newsletter about the importance of sending the elevator back down. How once you’ve “made it” (whatever your definition of making it might be), how important it is to remember to give back and help other people get to where you are.
It’s something I’ve tried to do a lot in my author and agent life. I give a lot. I host brain pick meetups. I leave my DMs open. I offer up critiques frequently and love introducing people to the right people.
But one thing no one really preps you for, is when you’ve sent that elevator down, and you watch people soar right by you on the way up… never to talk to you again. They’ve got what they wanted from you, and well, that’s the end of that. It happens. It’s happened to me plenty, and I’ve seen it happen to a few author friends, as it’s a frequent topic of conversation on book social media, and it hurts a lot.
Look. I want to tell you that this can make you bitter, and it’ll make you think twice about reaching out to send that elevator down. Don’t let it. There’s always going to be someone who sees you as a stepping stone, instead of a friend or a colleague, and unfortunately, you might not see those warning signs right away.
Keep helping. For every one person who uses you, there are a dozen who desperately need you. Don’t give up on them.
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You Can’t Grow Covered in Salt
Another lesson in being bitter here. Publishing is an industry, whether you’re on the creative or the business side (or both!), that it’s easy to get salty in. So easy. A burn from an editor, an author, a colleague… it is easy to let frustrations like those fester, and subsequently make you jaded.
There’s this great old episode of the Simpsons, where Homer is working on a homecoming float and takes flowers from Flanders. Ned points out that Homer has picked all the flowers in his garden, and Homer shrugs it off. “Can’t make a float without flowers.” He says.
Ned replies back with “but did you have to salt the Earth so nothing would ever grow again?”
I think it’s easy to let something negative leave you wanting to salt your world. But in the end, how do you grow, if you don’t let go what’s hurt you?
Be hurt. Feel the pain. But then put the salt away.
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Work Life Balance Isn’t Just About You
I feel like I joke a lot about my terrible work life balance, but the truth of it, was that this year was pretty rough trying to navigate it. And it was entirely my fault. I kept thinking I could do the work-at-home-Dad thing, while simultaneously getting all the work done that I needed to for my agent and author life, as well as the students I teach.
And while I was getting the work done… it came at a cost. Where I was up until midnight or 1AM most days, and just getting WILDLY cranky about it.
My amazing wife called me out on it in the Fall, pointing out how grumpy I’d gotten and told me it was time to get a full time office at the coworking space I hit up once a week or so. Get out of the house. And now that I’m here, starting my day at 7AM and wrapping it up around 4PM… oh my God.
There’s that Twitter joke, where a movie or a quote or a moment makes your skin clearer. Waters your crops. Gives your hair luster. That’s how it feels lately. I come home, I chill out. I make a nice dinner, we watch bad TV, I snuggle with my toddler.
In books, we talk a lot about self care and personal mental health while balancing the demands of the publishing life, but it’s less about self care for me, and more about caring for the people around me. Making sure they get the best version of myself. And it turns out, I can’t really do that with a computer in the house.
The computer stays at my office now. I don’t have one at home.
It’s something I’m carrying with me into the New Year.
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So, the TL;DR of it all?
Take a break, refill the well. You can’t drink when there’s nothing in it.
Don’t give up on helping people, just because you’ve been burned.
Work life balance isn’t just about you, but the people who you care about.
Have a good New Year, friends. I’ll be here, trying my best.