Hi friends,
I’m flying high from a comment I got from an editor on a query letter for one of my books. “This is one of the best pitches I’ve read in my career,” she said.
I used to get this sort of feedback from magazine and newspaper editors all the time, but it’s the first time coming from a book editor and I’ll admit to having jumped around the living room for an hour singing “I’ve still got it! I’ve still got it!” and really, really, annoying my husband.
I have 196 unread emails right now, all needing a response, and I have to tell you, I was going to send a pitch for a new story, but I couldn’t handle looking at my Inbox and so I didn’t. That thing’s out of control. Maybe if I sat down by my window that overlooks the sea, channeled an eighteenth-century British aristocrat, and told everyone I was “answering my correspondence,” I might feel more enthused about dealing with it?
I will answer them all, of course, and personally, because I know how busy you all are. I know you could be scrolling through social media or watching Netflix or reading a book. Instead, you’re here, reading this. And then, to take the time to write to me on top of it all? I don’t ever take that for granted.
And also? If you never wrote to me? I’d literally have no friends. So many of the writers I’ve come to love over the years have found me through this newsletter. People email me, I respond, we start a conversation, and we become friends. I’m still in touch with writers I met online back in 2002, some of whom I consider family at this point, and equally, an author I talk to almost daily about all my angst is someone who signed up to this list in 2019, joined a few of my courses, and then wouldn’t shut up about cats. (Hi, Katherine!)
Of the talents I possess, the strongest one is definitely my ability to attract absolutely amazing and incredible people into my life, people who have gone out of their way to help, support, and uplift me.
There was the American I met in India who, when I moved to the US as a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley, traveled upstate to come see me and slept in his car for a week as he helped me get settled in. He even accompanied me to the campus on my first day because I was nervous, and made fun of me for turning up in a formal jacket. There’s the guy I briefly dated who, even though we weren’t a good fit romantically, has remained one of my closest confidants for over a decade. When I changed my name, he was one of the very first people I told.
There was the editor who gave me several assignments in one go after Jude was born because he knew I needed the income. (A few years later, when he had twins, I made sure my stories were so perfect he wouldn’t need to spend more than five minutes reading and approving them.)
There was my editor at Elle, India, my biggest champion to this day, who paid me in advance for stories she hadn’t even commissioned yet because I was broke and she didn’t want me to keep getting distracted from the important work of finding and telling the stories of underrepresented women.
And of course, there’s the incredible agent who paid $15k out of her own pocket for me to work with a developmental editor because I was fictionalizing my own life story, and she wanted me to have all the support I needed during that potentially traumatizing and emotionally wrought process. She never asked for that money back, even after we parted ways and, in fact, sent me the following email when I wondered if we’d remain in touch:
You can’t get rid of me! I’m crazy about you. Go get it baby.
I’ve been thinking about this because I received an email from my London agent last week that made me go all gooey inside. We needed to terminate our agreement so my co-author and I can explore a more indie model and, I have to be honest, these are the hardest emails to write, especially when you really love and admire someone and, if possible, want to keep working with them. She wrote, in part:
I am so sorry I wasn’t able to find a home for your wonderful book—[co-author], your story absolutely deserves to be published and I’m really disappointed that I couldn’t be that bridge for you and that publishers didn’t step up. I wish you all the best with alternative publishing routes and will be the first to buy a copy…
And, of course, because we were such a good team, we’re figuring out how we can continue working together.
When I first started as a writer, there was someone a few years ahead of me who was beginning to have success in her career. If you have no one to celebrate with, she wrote back then, these accomplishments mean nothing.
That stuck with me, more than most writing advice. Perhaps because I have always had a low-level fear that, left to my own devices, I would shut myself away from the world.
But then, last week, I sat down to write a list of people I need to call, message or email to let them know I’m launching a crowdfunding campaign for my next book because they’ve helped or because they’re close friends/family and would be upset if they had to find out on Facebook. You know, parents, close friends, etc. I was expecting this to be an incredibly short list (I’m not a very social person), and so I was shocked to find it crossing ten, then twenty, and finally thirty.
I sat back and had the thought, the whole world is made up of my friends.
It suddenly made sense to me, what that author from my early years was saying.
I have been chasing the world’s notions of success for a long time, but true success has been here all along.
The people who are genuinely happy for me when I reach for my dreams. And who genuinely don’t give a shit when I fall short.
The people who would be upset if I didn’t reach out personally and insist that they help.
In the last year, as I’ve failed repeatedly, it’s felt like the whole world was made up of my friends.
And if I succeed, I want it to feel exactly the same way.
Cheers,
Natasha