It’s 12:22pm on a Tuesday afternoon. I’m on vacation this week and for weeks now I have said that this week would be the week I would start on putting together what I need to submit my book to publishers. I’ve had the book proofread by someone else. I’ve done my own proofreading and have settled on the fourth and final draft of the book. I’m happy with what I have written but after spending a few hours digging through the world of book submissions online, I find myself both intimidated and almost terrified to send anything out. I can feel my entire body vibrating with anxiety thinking about trying to “pitch” my book to publishers and agents.
I’ve jumped off buildings, walked on the steel girders of a massive harbour bridge, descending from 3000 feet in a parachute, zip lined across gorges, and even sat in a pool on the edge of a waterfall, but nothing scares me more than sending out my creative work to be judged by others.
The funny thing is, I have written countless blog posts, news articles, training manuals, and plenty of other material and have never cared what anyone thought. I mean, in my 20s I wrote ridiculous stories and articles for a fanzine called Vibrating Anal Jizz. Just saying that name alone makes me laugh and at the time I didn’t care what anyone thought. When it’s come to some of my biggest accomplishments in my life, I know that I have gone my own way and not concerned myself with what others think. Why is it that when it comes to this book, I’m so scared?
A few weeks ago I was sitting in my living room talking to Tamara about how I was feeling really uneasy about trying to find a publisher. My son Dylan comes out and sees that I am upset and asks what’s going on. With a bit of a sketchy sounding voice, on the edge of breaking out into tears in worry, I said to him that I was a little scared to try and get my book published and he asked me why. I smiled at him and said “What if they don’t like it?” He looks at me and says “Do you like it?” and I said “Ya I think so.” He shrugs his shoulders and says “then what does it matter if they don’t like it?” How is it that an almost 11 year old kid can be so matter of fact when I’m finding it an incredibly hard hurdle to overcome.
I sit at my computer and look at all of the things that need to be done to just submit a book, let alone get it published. It makes me second guess many of the things I have already written and wonder if I need to revisit it again and change a few things. But then I remember that when it comes to anything creative, most artists always say that they never feel like a piece of work is finished. I’m a huge fan of South Park and Trey Parker has said that by the very nature of the way they do the show, it forces him to write a certain way and to stop re-thinking things he’s written because “all you do is start second guessing yourself and rewriting stuff… and it would be 5% better”. Is that my case or am I just trying to find ways to dodge trying to get this out there.
Knowing how easy it is to self-publish, I can see why so many people go down that road. But for myself, I did a lot of reading about self vs traditional publishing and for me, the self model isn’t really what I want to follow. But if I want to go traditional, I need to find a way to get over these insecurities. Hopefully writing about it a little bit will help.
