You do not know this, but that’s why I wanted to share this with you. Just you. So, there is this little story sitting in my Google Drive right now that I poured time, sweated my edges out from revamping, and my late-night energy into. A novella.
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My novella. One I swore up and down I was going to publish this summer. I talked my talk behind closed doors. Hell, I even built momentum. I even hired a developmental editor because I wanted to get it right.
Shit, for a while, I thought I had it.
I remember revamping the Window’s doc for my editor and
admiring that draft I wrote feeling proud, nervous, and excited. I knew I was
going to need a lot of draft work. I was thinking like, Okay Linda, this is
your moment. When my editor went back and read through the developmental
edits, she tried to reassure me. She told me the bones were there. She told me
the story had potential. She told me all the things an editor is supposed to
say to keep you from scrapping your whole dream. I still felt tugged to open my
laptop in bed at 2 a.m. and erase everything.
It was then that reality slapped me across my temple.
I didn’t have the money for the line edit. Or the copy edit all at the same time.
Life was life-ing, bills were billing, groceries needed to be bought, and that
novella sat at the bottom of the to-do list while everything else took
priority. I tried to overlook my reality outside of the Window’s and Google
Docs I embraced after work hours.
Then came the beta readers once I felt like my draft was in the
final stage of being worked.
My editor sent the first three chapters out to three or four
people. Some of them read it and simply did not like it. One said it didn’t
make sense. Another basically implied it was trash. Oh, then the ghost. The
editor couldn’t get in touch with the beta readers after they were sent a few
chapters of my baby. My novella. There was silence between me and my editor,
and it made me uncomfortable. I did not blame her at all. I took those
insulting licks to the chin from the beta readers whether it was spoken or unspoken.
I took the criticism and nodded. Maybe I was not ready to pay more money to produce
a story that wasn’t gripping. Maybe my novella needed to be a full-length novel
and the release date needed to be pushed back.
I was sitting there feeling defeated over a almost 40k novella that I had already imagined myself releasing with a fire ass summer-themed promo and everything. That’s when I had the moment,
“Fuck it.”
It was fuck it, because I unexpectedly believed it was horrible.
I take what I put my time into seriously. I felt so disappointed in myself.
In my writing. In my potential. It didn’t feel like a win. It felt like a waste
of time, energy, and dreams. I could had came up with the money to give to my
editor. It was asking myself was this going to be the best work that I can do under
my pen name that had me overthinking on the slick.
Here’s the truth I had to sit with on my heart, “Sometimes a project is just meant to be practice.”
A steppingstone.
A lesson.
That’s exactly what this novella was for me.
It may never see the light of day. It may remain an unfinished
little dream that taught me more about myself than my writing. However, one
thing I refuse to let it do?
Hold me back from becoming the author I know I am meant to be.
I am still writing. I am still passionate about making a
living. I am still growing. I am still dreaming. Look, one day, the right book,
the real one, is going to make it to the shelves, the screens, or the hands of
the people who truly need my voice.
This novella wasn’t a failure.
It was the beginning.
I’m not done yet.
I will be someone’s favorite author.
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