Making A Hard Decision

After seven dry months in the query trenches, I made the decision back in March to shelve my first novel. I loved the characters. I loved the message. I spent months on research, interviewed half a dozen wheelchair users, spent two years drafting, revising, workshopping. Many late nights, many opportunities sacrificed. I expected to feel resentment about shelving it. Instead, I felt relieved.

Writing this book was not a waste of time. I learned so much about craft, about story, about drafting and revision and pitching and publishing. About love and faith and perseverance. I met many amazing people, including authors I idolize. I grew in innumerable ways. I rekindled the artist in me that I’d buried for years, and I became part of not one, but two communities of writers who fill my heart daily. How can I look on any of that with regret?

I don’t think this was the book of my heart. I think that’s yet to come. Will I take this manuscript off the shelf and give it another go one day? I might. But I realize now that hanging onto it was holding me back from investing fully in a new project. Letting go of the expectation that I’d “earned” the right to a book deal, simply because I wrote a book, feels good. Now I have the freedom to grow.