The Way It Really Is (As a Writer)

If anyone wonders what it’s like to live a writer’s life, here’s a realistic glimpse of what truly goes on.

In 2020, toward the end of that first long year of Covid, I spent several weeks writing a long short story. The piece, almost 10,000 words, turned into a meditation on loneliness and how love is not always enough to hold onto people we care about.

The story is slightly unusual, in terms of form, because it is written as a series of episodes over many decades involving four distinct characters (reflected through close third-person) whose lives intersect. Some episodes incorporate letters, emails, and found documents that I formatted in Word. The episodes skip around in time while also jumping around different characters’ arcs at different points in their lives, backwards and forwards.

I revised and polished the piece until I was satisfied with it and felt that a reader could follow the story lines despite the jumps in time and points of view.

Then I queried all the usual places, using Submittable and other tools to find literary magazines that might be a good home for the piece. I distinctly remember the first place I pitched was the Masters Review, both because they were open to longer short stories (which many outlets are not) and because they distinctly said they were looking for fiction a bit out of the box. I felt that my piece, Days of Leaving, would fit that bill.

It did not.

In fact, Days of Leaving didn’t fit any editor’s bill.

Over the last six years, I periodically re-queried Days of Leaving. I also left it along for long stretches.

Then I attended the AWP Conference this past March (a larger writers’ conference), where I met an author who’d recently had a chapbook published by a small press that specializes in bite-sized (i.e., chapbook-length) fiction and poetry.

I looked up that press (and other chapbook publishers I discovered) and pitched Days of Leaving.

A few days ago, I received an email that began:

Hi Amy, thanks for your submission! I love it and I’d be honored to work with you!

And just like that (to borrow a phrase), Days of Leaving had found a good home with a publisher who cares about original cover art (no AI!!) and creating tiny works of art to hold carefully crafted fiction and poems.

This isn’t about earning money as a writer or getting famous. It’s not about reviews.

It’s about being acknowledged that one’s writing is valued—and deserves to be shared. And for me, that’s what it’s really about because I have no control over the rest of it (the fame and fortune bit).

And isn’t it funny how my story about this piece of fiction mirrors my experience with both Tent City and Seed (my other forthcoming novel, long aborning)? I queried both those novels on and off for years…and it took years to find good homes for each of them…years to win some respect and acknowledgement from the publishing establishment that I had, indeed, produced something of value.

And this is the way it really is, for many writers.

My new novel TENT CITY, is getting some amazing early reviews!

“It’s a haunting lesson in the cost of looking away. Captivating, horrifying, and incredibly timely—I highly recommend this for anyone who likes their fiction with a sharp, truthful edge.” –Joan Fernandez, Saving Vincent