Going Rogue: Self-Publishing

I’m tired of waiting around, hoping for an agent for my book

Photo by ZSun Fu on Unsplash

In his memoir On Writing, Stephen King describes the frustration felt by many writers. Before he was picked up by a major publisher, King spent many hours writing and sending out stories and manuscripts, only to wind up with another stack of rejection letters. Every time he got a fresh rejection, he would shove it onto a nail in the wall by his desk.

As the stack of rejections grew, he continued to persist.

He also tells the story of his book, Carrie. He had started the book while he was still teaching high school English, and he’d grown disgusted with it so he had thrown it in the trash. It was his wife that rescued it from the rubbish and read it. Her faith in his work compelled him to continue, and the rest is history.

I know that like so many other eager students of writing, I felt a little flicker of hope — maybe one day, it would be my turn.

Or maybe not.

I had a professor who told me how heart-wrenching the writing business can be. It doesn’t love you back, he told me. He told me I should get out of it unless I wanted to be miserable.

But I’m still here.