Hey everyone,
Growing up, I wasn’t very good at compartmentalizing. An argument at home, a misunderstanding with a friend, an unresolved situation– all of these would become obsessive thoughts in my head and I’d be incapable of focusing on anything else until they’d been resolved.
In my twenties, by which point my personal life had become a hot mess, I’d become a pro at it. Not only could I distance myself from the events happening in my life and leave emotion at the door, but writing was increasingly also my safe space, to which I retreated when I needed a break from the world.
As a journalist, this skill came in handy, too. A reporter cannot become a puddle on the floor when covering difficult stories, not only because it makes you useless as a journalist, but also because it makes you a burden on the very people whose stories you’re there to tell. I could witness difficult incidents, then step back enough to write about them without my own intervening emotions.
I’ve always been taught to show up for my job capably and professionally, especially in public, whether that work has been that of a journalist, a novelist, or here, as a writer speaking to other writers.
This week, I’ve found it difficult.
If you’ve been following the news, you know what’s happening in India. As a friend quite rightly said, for almost every Indian citizen, whether living in India or abroad, the numbers have become names, and the names are those of our loved ones. Yesterday, I spent the whole day trying to source oxygen for a friend’s father in Delhi. She’s in the UK, I’m in the UK, but her entire family in India is sick, the hospitals are full, and no one is well enough to go out. Between us and half a dozen other friends, a hundred phone calls must have been made, and finally, just after 10pm India time, we were able to get him enough oxygen to last through the night, and a possible home ICU set up.
I didn’t feel like talking about agents and publishing after that.
But here’s why I will today, and why I will continue to show up here even when it feels disconnected from the reality of life right now: I’m not in the business of publishing; I’m in the business of storytelling. And while I love all kinds of storytelling, including every book ever written for pure entertainment, those are not the stories I tell. I want to tell stories that change the way we see the world, or see it from a different perspective, or that tell of the horrors we witness in the every day.
The novel I have on submission right now, for instance, tells the story of how expat journalists in countries like India exploit local journalists, especially women, and go to great lengths to protect those they consider their own. How when you give enough power and money to a group of people and allow them control over the narrative, it is only a matter of time before they are corrupted.
I want this book to have wide reach. For that, I need an agent. For that, I need a publisher. I need someone to handle the mechanics and the distribution so that I can focus on the storytelling. So I can write my next books, the memoir of woman who overcame great odds, an untold story of immigration, and my next novel.
I need people on my team who are excellent at their jobs, so that I can be excellent at mine. I want my editor to help me polish every word to perfection, my agent to help me get advances that allow for me to write without distraction, and my publisher to make sure the book is distributed widely. I want them to be at the top of their game, because only then will I be able to be at the top of mine.
Without the help of these professionals, I cannot tell the stories I want to tell and reach the people I know they can impact.
So I choose them, my team, carefully.
It’s why you should, too.
The right agent will help you rise massively in your career, and the wrong one will set you back years and a possible deviation from your path.
The right agent will help open doors for the stories you want to tell. Help you make money. And connect you to people who will help you grow.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from the last week, the last year, and the last decade, it is that we all have powerful stories to tell, and that we need the support of a team in telling them.
People who believe in them, see their potential, buy into your vision.
Getting an agent is the first step in that process.
Cheers,
Natasha