The Hardest Thing to Do Is Nothing

When to Just Not

Hello!

I was going to postpone this installment to write about the michegoss going on with the guy who said if I just crunch the numbers enough it will tell me how to write a novel. Wrong! Luckily, Lincoln Michel did this wonderfully yesterday on Counter Craft, and you can read that here! After doing that, come back here and let me tell you about doing nothing.

What Algorithms Can't Tell You about Art

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I’m the first to admit that I’m a know-it-all. That’s why I gravitated toward this platform where I make you all listen to me each week. One of my current frustrations is that with my advancing age (not that advanced, but advancing), I’ve figured a few things out that would have been helpful to know in my twenties. They guy is never going to love you, Kate!! Stop worrying about what other people think!! Go to yoga!

It’s particularly poignant when I’m talking to my kid (almost 7) and I absolutely know how to handle whatever worry or crisis they are experiencing but they will in no way, never, not once, 0% chance listen to me. I mean, I didn’t listen to my mom either! My kid will not be listening to me because they have to figure it out for themselves, just like I did and you did and most other people did, at least about some things.

Since this is a writing/publishing newsletter, and not a parenting newsletter, let’s bring it back to me and that. In those situations, what I have to do with my kid or anyone else I feel like telling what to do because I am oh so knowledgeable etc etc is…nothing. I have to do nothing and just let things happen.¹ I can tell you all the ways I think you can write a query letter, but if you’re convinced the way to go is to write it in the voice of your character, well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I can give you as many tips and dos and don’ts as my fingers can type, but if you want to call your book a fictional memoir, that’s your choice.

There will be a point when you send your work out into the world, to agents, to your agent, to an editor, to your editor, when you can’t do anything about it anymore. It’s out of your hands. You can’t tinker with it. You can’t edit (this draft, at least). You can’t get in their inbox and say ok but this part? I really mean it to be this way. Do you see? Did you get it? a

There will hopefully be a point in the future when the book goes to the printer and then goes on sale and after the initial marketing push and the bits and bobs you do after it’s been out for a while, there’s really nothing you can do. It’s out there for readers to find now, and they may have to find it on their own. The things you do at that point are general marketing for yourself, like your newsletter, or social media, or being active in your genre/writing community. But there’s no formula that says the perfect way to market your book when it’s been out for six months is to do XYZ. You might be done doing for a while. I get many panicked emails at this point asking what do I do now??? What will make a difference?? And the answer to both is nothing.

It can be very hard to do nothing, at least for me. I recognize there are others in the very hard to do something category, too. I’ve found that this is more like acceptance than giving up. I’ve done what I can do. I can’t make the other person do the thing I know they should do. My kid has to fight their own battles on the playground. The editor has to read the book in their own time. The readers have to come to my work whenever they come to it. The shruggie guy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ today isn’t “I don’t know,” it’s “well, it’s out of my hands.”

OXOXOXOXOX,

Kate

1. Obvs not letting people put themselves in danger etc. You know what I mean.