No One Aspires to J.K. Rowling's Career Path
The success of Harry Potter is the stuff of legend. But as a writer, when you get that eleventh rejection for the manuscript you’ve slaved over for five poverty-stricken years it’s unlikely that you’re gonna pump your fist in the air and say, “Alright! I’m one rejection away from tying J.K. Rowling’s record!” Likewise, when you receive thanks-but-no-thanks letters from almost 100 editors and agents you will not congratulate yourself for following in the footsteps of Bonnie Garmus whose first manuscript was reportedly rejected 98 times before she wrote the runaway bestseller, Lessons In Chemistry. No. For most of us getting 98 rejections will have us pouring the whiskey not popping the champagne.
And yet these are the stories the media most enthusiastically feeds us. These are the stories we crave, that we need. We are desperate to learn about the writer who was under appreciated or underestimated, the writer who straight up failed only to go on to achieve epic success. George R.R. Martin’s well reviewed second novel was such a colossal failure his publisher wrote him off. Despondent, Martin considered giving it all up for a job in real estate.
Everybody loves that story but only because we’ve already read the next chapter. Martin’s journey gives us hope that maybe, just maybe, we too have a Game Of Thrones in us that will prove all our doubters wrong. These are the stories that make us feel good.
But living them feels pretty damn awful.
What beginning authors actually aspire to is a career path that resembles that of Brett Easton Ellis and Amanda Gorman, two writers who have nothing in common other than their eye-popping critical and commercial success achieved before they were old enough to rent a car. Those are the stories that are more fun to live than to tell: rags to riches minus the rags. We want to send out our manuscript and have agents line up to woo us and editors falling all over themselves to work with us. We want a bidding war. We want immediate validation of our genius and if we can’t have that we’d at least like relatively quick assurance that we’re on the right path.
Not very many of us get to be Ellis or Gorman. And of course what makes the tough times…well, tough is that we know most books that get a eleven-plus rejections don’t go on to make us richer than the Queen of England. It’s not illogical to worry that your career path as a writer will not be the exception to the rule.
But what is the rule? Is it failure? Honestly, that doesn’t match my personal experience nor my observation of others. Assuming you choose to persevere despite the rejections you will almost definitely get your shot. And if you blow that shot but keep trying you’ll get another one and another one after that. Maybe you’ll be like Tamara Lush who found a home for many of her wonderful lighthearted romances with Watpad Books. Or maybe you’ll be like Alina Adams whose most recent novel, My Mother’s Secret was rejected by the New York publishing house she had initially been contracted with but then went on to find a home at a small, independent press whose editors connected with the material and helped her find her audience. Both of these women are successful, professional writers with a noteworthy readership. Neither of them would compare their success to that of Bonnie Garmus.
Then again, both of them are younger than Bonnie Garmus was when she became an “overnight success” at 65. Maybe superstardom is in their future. Maybe it’s in mine. I’m not so jaded or humble as to completely give up on that dream nor am I so unrealistic or arrogant as to expect it.
I do expect that I’ll have manuscripts that are rejected by some and published by others. I’ll take genuine satisfaction in my impressive-but-not-legendary achievements as I have in the past. And as I do I’ll fantasize about the day when I become such a literary rock star that my rejections serve as other people’s inspiration.
It’s the kind of dream that’s just enticing enough to get a writer to put the whiskey away and get back to work. That’s useful. That’s a dream worth having.