Into the Trenches

A story about big steps and raging anxiety.

I’ve been living in a dismal place for the last few weeks.

A place where stress festers like black mold. And anxiety ricochets from wall-to-wall-to-wall of my body. Where my inbox is a torture chamber. And my patience has left the building.

A place that writers refer to as the “query trenches.”

I’m trying to write – and publish – a book and I’ve reached the stage in the process where I want to find a literary agent to represent me and this project. It’s pretty much impossible to publish a book through one of the bigger publishing houses without an agent – and so I’m trying to get an agent, to at least explore that possibility.

But it also feels pretty much impossible to do that.

At least according to the horror stories I’ve heard from other writers (“it took me seven years to get an agent” “I gave up after 171 tries”), and the doomsday stats, (the agents that get, like, hundreds of queries *every week* and only sign, like, 3 new writers *a year*), and all of the anxiety bouncing around my head.

It’s been very easy to spiral into a doom ditch and set up camp.

One of the fun things about the querying process is just how many opportunities exist for developing more, and more, and more anxiety. It’s like a 7-layer-dip into a vat of high-speed stress.

First, there’s the initial query. In which you send an agent your idea for a book in a catchy, concise package. A one-page letter you hope will make them want to read more of your work and consider representing you and your book.

But there is no formula to agent responses. Every agent operates on a different timeline, with different tastes, and different strategies for tackling their slush pile of queries. Someone described querying as diving into a casino. There is so much chance involved with when and how each agent will respond to your work – or if they will even respond at all.

So, that initial letter triggers a bunch of worrying and waiting: Will I ever hear back from this agent? If yes, then when? This week? This month? This year? This century? Will they want to see more of my writing? Or, will they respond with a form rejection that politely declines my story? Or, even worse, silence.

If you do get a positive response and the agent wants more of your work, congrats! The reward is another round of MORE anxiety and more waiting as they read your book proposal and sample chapters and decide whether to give you a thumbs up or down.

I’ve had a group of agents request my full book proposal after my first round of queries. Which is exciting! At least in theory, because they see potential in my book. But it mostly just feels stressful. Because, more anxiety. And, more waiting. And also, more vulnerability. Because I have put so much of me into this writing. Because I care so much about this story.

When I send agents my full book proposal, it feels like I’m slicing off a living, beating piece of me and offering it to them to poke, and prod, and dissect into bits.

I am querying a memoir. A vulnerable story overflowing with the rawest of emotions.

And as much as I know this is all a very subjective process and I shouldn’t internalize any feedback, it still feels very personal. I see their possible rejections as a knife hovering over that beating, living story of mine, ready to slide that blade in and drag it back-and-forth over a most tender part of me.

And so, as I wait, it feels like I am treading in a rocky sea of vulnerability. Feeling exposed and afraid of what waves will crash into me.

Unfortunately, the querying process (and publishing, in general) is an endurance event. And while I am pretty good at endurance running, I am very, very bad at endurance waiting.

When people ask me how I’m doing or what have I been up to lately, I awkwardly stall and stammer, because all I can think to answer is, “My anxiety tries to suffocate me in the night and I am in a toxic relationship with my phone. I would tell you just how many times I refresh my inbox every hour but my shame might join my anxiety in the nightly suffocation attempts.”

I try to walk away from it, of course, but I keep going back for more – like an inbox junkie. I’ll cradle my phone in my palm just willing it to give me my next hit of two hopeful vibrations. Which is usually just PetSmart telling me Dilly needs a new stuffed unicorn and not someone offering enthusiastic representation of my book.

When I told a few friends that I’d sent out my first round of queries, they had a very different response than I did, which was to collapse on the floor and bury myself in my sleeping bag for hours, as if the thick down would protect me from all of the vulnerability I felt.

“THAT’S SO EXCITING!” they cried.

But I just looked back at them. With my deer-in-headlight eyes enlarged with panic and unease.

It’s been hard for me to see the excitement that my friends did, or the hope, or the courage, or the big step forward that I took when I sent out my first queries, because my anxiety blinders are yanked up so darn high.

But it is exciting! It is a big step! And no matter what happens, I am chasing this thing that I care about. And that’s a thing that I claim to find a lot of value in. I showed up to try to do something big and hard and scary. And I sure as heck wouldn’t be able to create this book and share this story if I kept my writing buried in the depths of my computer forever.

It’s funny to me that I just DNF’d the JMT and spent very little time dwelling on my failure to finish the run, and much more time feeling excited about the fact that I showed up to try, despite my many fears and doubts and insecurities.

And so while I continue to wade my way through the query trenches, I wonder if I can bring some of that outlook into my doom ditch. I think about what I can do to calm some of my raging anxiety, so I can appreciate what exists beyond it.

I know that I’ll continue to feel plenty of fears and doubts and vulnerability as I go, because it is a big and hard and scary thing.

But, I wonder what else I might be able to feel and embrace?

Because it is other things, too.

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