In which drafting an uncontracted novel is like learning to accept the passage of linear time as broken up into manageable pieces by the municipal garbage collection schedule
Sit with me for a moment.
The first thing I do every week after I take the garbage out is go into the kitchen and generate at least two pieces of garbage: the instant breakfast packet, and a milk bag if I finish it. For several years, this stymied me, and I would often miss garbage day altogether. I just could not make myself take it to the curb knowing that I was immediately going to make more garbage. I thought it had to be completely finished for me to work.
Drafting a book without a contract is kind of terrifying. I mean, most of us did it as debuts, back when we were writing for fun, but once writing became my job, I loved the security of knowing my work was already purchased. I've only ever written two full books that WEREN'T under contract: OWEN and EXIT. Everything else sold on proposal. It provides my life with a certain amount of order: I know I'm getting paid and I know exactly what I have to do (and I already have an editor I can ask for help if I am in a pinch).
(Some authors find this terrifying and ONLY write books before they are sold. I believe Sarah Dessen is one? It's how she works. It scares the crap out of me. As usual, you have to find what works for you.)
Garbage day is Wednesday in my town. Every second week, there's recycling picked up, too. The green bin (which I loathe) is every week. You have to tag your bags, and I always forget, but fortunately the gas station across the street sells the tags, and they open early. It's the system by which Stratford functions, and mostly it's fine, but there was a period of my life before the pandemic where I was very rarely home on Wednesdays.
There are two ways to sell a book on contract as an established author: full manuscript and proposal. I've mentioned earlier that I favour the proposal approach. I've been fortunate in that my primary editor and I have been working together for almost a decade, and that Star Wars works almost entirely on pitches. My proposals are usually pretty short. I think the longest was A Thousand Nights (20K and a vague "rocks fall, everyone dies"), and the shortest was Prairie Fire (a reply to an editorial question with "Andrew, if you want to know the answer, you need to buy another book"). This is not AT ALL normal. But honestly, publishing very rarely is.
I had one set of upstairs neighbours who would take my garbage out when I was away from home. They were retired and a bit bored, and also hilariously thrilled to live above A Real Published Author. But for the last five years, I've had to come up with my own systems. Sometimes this means taking a bag to the city dump. Sometimes this means a mountain of recycling once a month instead of a reasonable amount every other week. Sometimes this means I skip the green bin because I can't handle the idea of hauling three things to the end of the driveway. No matter what I do, I have to come inside and make breakfast right away. The cycle never ends.
Right now I am working on several pitches, one contracted book and one non-contracted book. I like to do that in the summer, because it's the most flexible time for me. In the other seasons, I can buckle down and draft, but summer is a good time to throw spaghetti at the wall. People are a bit slower to answer email. I'm a bit more likely to sleep in. And honestly, I think that kind of balance is a good thing. I am, hilariously, NOT GOOD at writing true proposals, because I have never really had to do it. Summer is a good time to learn. The garbage isn't being collected quite as regularly.
You've probably been thinking "Kate, why don't you just make breakfast and THEN take the garbage out?" since the beginning of this letter, and please trust me when I tell you that I have TRIED. I'm all for shaking up routines and trying new things, but sometimes things just don't WORK, and the garbage truck is going to come anyway. The key was when I accepted that time, as we perceive it--manageable--is false, but the mechanism by which we enforce it--municipal garbage collection--is absolutely necessary.
Sometimes you just have to hand things in. Wednesday morning rolls around, and you bring all your stuff out and the neighbours go through it and sometimes it's windy or there's an enterprising raccoon, and everything is a disaster. But you did it. You fulfilled your role in the contract. Now it's your editor's problem.
The good news, of course, is that writing is not garbage. I mean, sometimes it FEELS like garbage. But there's a decent chance that your writing is fine, I promise. And your editor is going to make it better. You just have to give it up. And it doesn't even smell!
The key to an uncontracted novel is that it will probably be a contracted novel eventually. You're doing your job. And if for some reason the book is passed on, someone will TELL you and give it back (like those packing peanuts I assumed were recyclable, but apparently are not). Even though it feels like you're on your own (whether you like the feeling or not!), you're still part of an industry. It has its ups and downs, obviously, but there's a framework there, and you can use it to support yourself, even when you feel like it's taking advantage of you.
And then you come back inside, take a deep breath, and make breakfast.