What If I Suck?

Or, it's me, hi, I'm the problem.

In the late-summer of 2022 I attended a book release party filled with Boston-area writers. One spoke to me about how she landed a huge agent in the literary fiction world. (For those of you who don’t know, few writers ever land representation. The odds are 1 in 1,600. Or 1 in 1,000. Or less than 2%. The internet can be confusing.) This agent had never failed to sell a book (to a publisher; industry jargon here, kids). The writer was told to prepare for a launch campaign and book tour. When I asked what that felt like she grew quiet, looked down at her drink, swirled the glass full of melting ice.

You see where this is going, yeah?

The book didn’t sell. The writer and agent parted ways. She wrote another novel, found new representation. That book failed to sell. The night we spoke she was still writing, but had come to terms with her experiences. She expected nothing from the industry, and therefore would never again be disappointed.

“That’s the business,” she said.

With a trembling hand I downed the rest of my Diet Coke.

I’d been told for years representation leads to publication, as if one always followed the other. I joked with my wife how funny it would be (not funny ha-ha, more funny OHMYGODNOPLEASEWHY) if I landed an agent and no publishers wanted the novel. But I didn’t think that actually happened. I know now that it does. And I’m left asking myself one question: what if I’m not good enough?

Anyone who’s ever painted a picture, or written a book, or made a movie, or acted in a play has put themselves out there. By presenting themselves and their work they are asking for opinions. For validation. Look at me, at what I’ve created. Tell me it’s good. Tell me I’m good.

Problem is, “good” is subjective. And subjectivity will drive you crazy.

In Nicole Holofcener’s 2023 film You Hurt My Feelings, Julia Louis Dreyfus plays a writer who learns her husband thinks her new book is trash. It’s a shock because he had claimed to her face her work is incredible. I can relate to that.

Those close to you will claim everything you’ve done is excellent (mothers are the worst with this). Their opinions are to be discarded, or, better yet, never sought at all. Strangers, on the other hand, will shit on you with impunity. Just take a scroll through Goodreads or Letterboxd or Amazon. The democratization of art has made everyone a critic. And while everyone’s entitled to their opinion, not everyone’s opinion merits the internet’s amplification. Witness the phenomenon of book review bombing.

Mostly, though, you will be ignored. Because the world’s got other stuff on its mind.

Still publishing is a business—barely—and expected to turn a profit. Those working within it are concerned with whether your book will move enough copies to keep their jobs. In this framework, “good” comes a distant second to salability. In an industry facing challenges from gaming, social media, streaming, and the twin realities that most Americans don’t read books and men don’t read fiction. As this piece in GQ UK suggests, when it comes to the novel, it’s you, guys, you’re the problem.

Shortly after Cormac McCarthy’s death, Dan Sinykin wrote in the New York Times how the great writer's career will never happen again. Editors who cared passionately about literature allowed McCarthy to keep pumping out bleak, existential work like Outer Dark, Child of God, and Suttree, despite the books not, ya know, selling. During this time McCarthy lived in poverty and bathed in lakes. It wasn’t until All The Pretty Horses hit big in 1992 that McCarthy received a royalty check. For reference, his first novel, The Orchard Keeper, came out in 1965. Such long leashes have been snipped.

Through a friend, I know of some authors in the military/action-adventure genre. More than a few had their contracts cancelled after four books. Their series weren’t selling in numbers that justified renewal. The irony is most authors don’t break out until books five or six. Like Cormac.

A few of the displaced landed for-hire gigs with the estates of giants like Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum. They’re writing known quantities for established audiences. Familiar characters. Reliable, exploitable intellectual property. In a word, safe.

Before taking me on, my former agent advised me to write accessible, commercial thrillers. Stories that could be easily optioned to Hollywood producers. Stories that are safe. Editors wouldn’t be interested in the kinds of novels I was sending him, regardless of quality. The question of “Am I good enough?” became “Am I willing to compromise my vision?” Let me think about that.

Nope.

And so I tell myself my intransigence is the reason I’m still unpublished. It has nothing to do with the quality of my prose (my mom thinks it’s great!) or my plot originality (wait, you’ve read dark neo-noir before?) or my settings (what do you mean New York City’s been done?). This must be why the industry doesn’t want me. (There is another, more controversial angle. But we’ll hold off on that for now.)

Writing novels requires hubris. It takes balls to think what you have to say is worth twenty-seven bucks and ten hours of a reader’s life. But I can’t be the only one into the kinds of stories I’m writing. I am not the only person thinking these thoughts. That’s a big reason I started this newsletter. Carl Jung and the notion of the collective unconscious back me up.

Know who else backs me up? Def Jam Records co-founder Rick Rubin. He believes when it comes to art the audience comes last. The artist has to make the truest version of what’s in her or her head. Because art is like a diary entry, and who’s to say my diary entry or yours is wrong.

So I’m going to keep making real what I see in my head. Even if it sucks.

Which it may. I’m still not sure.