Quickly – don’t think of Purple Elephants!
Are you doing it? Are you not thinking of Purple Elephants?
How about now?
Now?
NOW?!?
Hmmm, still thinking about it, huh? Yeah, that’s been my life recently. Just one great big ball of anxious, jittery Purple Elephant fanaticism … as long as you replace the word ‘Purple” with ‘YA’ and ‘Elephant’ with ‘Editor’. Ah, yes - now it makes sense, right?
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| Uh, yeah. Now this makes sense ... |
As I mentioned at the end of my last post, my latest YA novel has just gone on submission to publishers across North America and the UK. Which is great, obviously. And also terrifying! Up until now, this story I love so much has lived happy and safe in a little space in my head where I could reassure it and cuddle it and tell it what a wonderful International Smash Hit Number 1 Best Seller it was going to grow into one day.
I could do that, because back then this story hasn’t really been seen by anyone except my agent and a few readers (well, my husband and my Dad - but of course they liked it).
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| "Princess, I promise to be utterly impartial to all your 'achievements'." |
And now it’s off in the hands of absolute strangers. Strangers who don’t know it like I do, who didn’t see it grow from an odd half-idea that struck me while I was writing my poor, Lifeballed trilogy to a fully-grown novel with a characters I adore, a plot I’m really proud of and relationships I still get a bit teary about*!
Nope, these editors are under no obligation to love my messed up little head-world. And, even if they do, that’s no guarantee they’ll share it with the rest of the world (Nathan Bransford’s written a great post on why)! And even if they do share it, there’s no guarantee anyone will read it and even if they do read it, there’s no guarantee they’re – AAAAAHHH!!So. Many. If. They. Do-s!
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| Makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop! |
It’s usually about this point in the obsessing that my husband closes down gmail on my computer, pries the phone from my hand, sits me down on the sofa with a glass of wine and tells me – very calmly and quietly and absolutely correctly – that I need to try not to think about it right now. And I smile and nod and tell him he’s right, and we stick on more Portlandia and I drink my wine. And as he puts his arm around me and tells me he’s proud of me no matter what, I try to ignore the fact he seems to have turned into a Giant, Purple, YA Editing Elephant. Just like the Elephants onscreen, and the Elephants in the room and …
Yeah, I may have a bit of a problem. I guess I should just let it go.
0.33 on-wards is surprisingly cathartic
So - clearly I blog and rant when I need to distract myself from the crazy. How do you take your mind off things? Let me know below!
Love, Aislinn
xxx
I wanna see a video of you lipsyncing to Let It Go while drinking wine. And possibly wearing a pink elephant on your head...
ReplyDelete*hugs* Your husband is right. Hard as it is, you've got to let that book go and focus your attention on something else. You're going to get this. If not, you'll get the next one. Or the one after that.
Like Rocky says, "It ain't about how hard you can hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep getting back up. That's how winning is done."
Repeat that every time you feel the pressure build, and imagine you're in a montage with awesome 80s music playing.
"This is how winning is done."