The Hated Hope

How Querying has once again ignited that old Hated Hope... and how horrendous it can be.

(Credit to Jack as always for this brilliant sketch of Balthazar)

Well, this is just a little bit awkward isn't it? I haven't ever posted so close between one post and the next... but I wanted to get this onto paper since I feel like it's another important step on my literary journey. Also... I want to tell this to someone, anyone, since I feel like if I don't it'll continue to build up inside me.

Simply put, I am beyond terrified. (Pun intended)

Querying takes so... so much out of me physically, both due to just my mental state afterwards but also how stress takes out much more of a toll on me due to my condition. It made the first rounds of querying a truly difficult time... and while I have people to help me back up this time, it still doesn't make this part of the journey any less daunting than it was before. I thought I could avoid this, that I could detach myself from the process and just push through it without worry... but it's hard. And it hurts.

That hated hope which I mentioned so long ago (if I'm remembering my own posts properly) has once again reappeared, and thrown me into a cascading crash between the absolute best and worst parts of myself. Whenever looking at a new agent, this... dread sets in which drags me down, driving me mad as I remember my previous failures, and how so many agents said no without even a second glance. It drains the creativity out of me, pulling it away until all I'm left with is this barren pit of what-ifs and why-nots, causing me to question the caliber and craft of my creations.

And yet, the hated hope continues to burn, whispering what-ifs within and daring to ask the most forbidden of questions, what if they say yes?

After self-publishing Beyond, I thought I could just move on as so many authors have mentioned in their interviews and posts. How they wrote one story, got no responses, and moved onto the next one. And for the most part, I thought I could do that.

Trust me when I say, I have absolutely no shortage of ideas buzzing and bursting within my brain begging to be set free. Beyond is and will always be the first (or second, including What I Could've Been) of many stories that I want to write in this lifetime, so it's not as if I think of this as my 'one hit wonder' to dazzle the world and defy expectations before I disappear forever. I have The MayFly, The SpringKeeper Saga, There are Wolves Here, and Tomorrow Is Today just sitting in my notes waiting for the moment when I can finally shape them into something tangible. In fact, I'll be working on something entirely new this Thanksgiving, melding my passion for writing and the materials I'm learning in school into something which I truly believe will be something special. The working name is, 'The Mage's Guide to Mana Structures'. I'll go into it a bit more later when there's time.

But after self-publishing Beyond and letting it finally sit there in my hands, something just felt... wrong to me. Half-filled, nagging at the back of my brain every time I looked upon its cover. I didn't really realize what it was until Jack took a chance and read the book, which finally made me realize what it was. That I'd left a part of myself behind, hidden in Beyond, lingering in its pages... and I couldn't just abandon it. Forget it and move onto the next thing, increase my chances and write to appease someone else.

This was a story I wanted to tell, and after I finally found people to read it after so long... I saw that there was an audience out there. I didn't know where they were, but after Jack read Beyond I knew and know now that somewhere there are people ready to be pulled into its pages. Just thinking about that finally filled that pit which had lingered for so long, and reinvigorated my spark which had grown dimmer under the empty weights I'd placed upon it without even realizing it.

Even now, imagining those moments when someone will finally look upon that, look upon this, and see Beyond... it's helping me to push beyond the hatred of my hope, and just see it as hope.

I know this may not be the ideal path, and I am most certainly not that person who got a yes after moving on from what they've written... but I think that's fine. I'm not them, and their path is far different than mine.

Thank you as always for listening to my maddened rambles. I hope that one day, someday soon, I'll get to meet you. Or perhaps instead, you'll be able to meet me. Lingering within the pages of Beyond, scattered throughout the Farlands and waiting in The Paper Palace.

We'll see, up ahead.

Until our next chat, however far along the road it'll next be,

- Ud Din