The Grass Is Always Greener On The Other Side Of The Existential Crisis
Sometimes I feel like our bodies are intrinsically wired to find something to worry about. To plant a pit in your stomach like a dormant bomb that passively bothers you with the very idea that it may one day, in the very far-out future, blow you to smithereens.
No…just me?
Well, I say this because it’s been on my mind a lot this week. How just a few months ago, my body was thrumming with worries that my writing would forever remain on my laptop, that no one would see my stories, that the cover I’d pictured a million times would only exist in the bowels of my imagination. These thoughts compounded with haunting ideas that I was kidding myself into thinking I could be a writer, that my ideas were stale and derivative, all punctuated by one potent question that would gnaw at the gray matter of my mind like a vulture: How could I, a 23-year-old recent college graduate whose spent most of her life indulging in the wonders of waspy suburbia life, possibly have anything important to say?
That was enough to send me into an entire spiral.
The beauty and horror of this industry is that it is subjective. It affords everyone the opportunity to have a shot, making creative integrity the true pillar by which we earn our place, which makes it unique in the landscape of the working world today. But in that same vein, there is no real way of knowing if you’re doing anything right, no checkpoint or award granted to you for doing your best, no promotion or raise you receive once you’ve hit 100,000 words in your manuscript or edited that tenth draft (other than that ten-dollar bottle of sauvignon blanc I buy for myself.) All you have is this internal belief that you think your story is worth the hours and tears and blood that make a writer worth their salt in this industry.
And now, I’ve seemingly gotten my shot, a publisher who believes in my story and an editor who makes me feel like I’ve won the lottery. I am in the place that I dreamed I’d be in for so many years of my writer life. The moment that I believed would eviscerate all of my doubts and worries and concerns. And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel incredible and validating, but I’d also be lying if I said that all of my worries melted away. Instead, they took the form of new ones. Will people like my writing? Will I market my book enough? Am I doing enough for my story? And the most difficult one to stomach—what if it all goes away tomorrow? This is my book baby, and knowing it will actually reach its readers has offered a slew of incredible hopes and undeniable fears.
Being a creative means having skin in the game, and the more you give, the more your risk. But there is comfort in knowing that you will never look back and regret not having done enough, not having worked for your shot. And for me, I’ve validated my fears, because in a way, the grass will always be greener, but at the same time, I have dreamed of seeing how green the grass is exactly where I am.
I think sometimes, we need to trust where we are: the first draft, the query trenches, the developmental edit, the ending we can’t get right until we do. And let the little wins be a writer’s best sign that being where we are is the best way to prepare for where we go next.
Getting a book deal or a publishing contract or an agent doesn’t make someone a writer. Writing makes them a writer. And my belief in that fact has allowed me to survive even the most grueling parts of this process.
Summer Rayne was born out of this idea that writing is a fundamental piece of who I am. Rayne and all of these characters are segments of DNA in the fabric of the writer I’ve become. And although it terrifies me, I am over the moon knowing that very soon, these characters will be out in the universe for its readers. The Shore Summer Series is coming to you from Olive Press Publishing.
-Julia ♥
