Continuing

and Alysa Liu, because the Olympics!

A few weeks ago, after turning in a requested cover survey and author photo and being informed that my book’s publication date was moving up several months, my publisher sent me a terse email informing me they wouldn’t be moving forward with publishing my book. I asked for additional information and was denied any explanation.

I’m a nosy millennial who has spent most of my adult life ferreting out information on the internet, though, so I did some digging. From what I can surmise, the publisher is moving away from fiction entirely, which is good news because there wasn’t something specifically wrong with me or my story. It’s bad news, though, because it means even a bookstore catering to Latter-day Saints doesn’t think they can sell a novel about a Mormon girl. And if they can’t do it, who can?

I’ve done a fair amount of wallowing. My husband said, “It’s like your engagement was called off.” It turns out you can make any angry Taylor Swift song about a business deal gone wrong, which shouldn’t surprise me, actually, considering all she went through with her masters. I still feel generally down—the last year, anytime something went wrong, I still had this glowing happy hope that I had a book coming out, that this dream I’d had for as long as I could remember was happening. It’s a little harder to pick myself up on a bad day without my emotional support book deal. I’ve done some stress-eating and stress-shopping. I started punching the heavy bag in our garage until my entire body ached.

But I did a few other things, too. I made a list of agents. I queried one that might have a particular interest in my niche genre. I asked well-connected people for advice. And while I took about ten days off actually writing—it just hurt a little too much—I did come back to the page. And when I started writing again, I received an unexpected gift.

Writing felt magical again.

I’m not sure if I’ve been worrying too much about what my publisher wants, or focusing on the outcome instead of the process, or if I’ve just been gifted with a little extra sparkle to get me through this letdown, but I remember now why I love doing this. And while I’m literarily “single,” I feel a sense of freedom to expand and develop my books the way I envision them. When I committed to my publisher, my story was committed to a certain shape and path. Now, everything is open, and there’s freedom in that.

I don’t know what will happen—if someone will decide they’re interested in publishing my book, if I’ll opt for full creative control and publish it myself, if I’ll sell a couple hundred copies or somehow find my way onto everyone’s nightstand. But if I’ve learned one thing through the atmospheric highs and crushing lows of this journey, it’s that the process itself has to be the reward. I knew that, I think, but I forgot for a while in the excitement of feeling chosen.

In honor of the Winter Olympics, I’ll leave you with a few words of wisdom from gold medalist Alysa Liu: “‘I don’t need this,’ she said, cupping the gold medal dangling around her neck. ‘But what I needed was a stage, and I got that. So I was all good, no matter what.’”

It isn’t a perfect analogy. But if you watch Liu’s performance, you can see the joy she feels as she takes the ice. She’s breathtaking because she’s flawless, but there’s something more—grace, ease, and joy. She’s there for the right reasons—not to amass titles or lord them over her competitors, but out of passion.

So here’s to creating with passion in the face of failure and naysayers, to being open to possibilities I once ruled out. I’m not making the fastest progress right now, but I’m putting one foot in front of the other. Right now, that’s good enough.