Dear book two, I’ll never get over you
On book grief, creative block and the moments which can undo an infant writer... and how to move through it
When I get a rejection letter from agent, I eat a small piece of chocolate and archive the email. Nothing in my life changes, I tell myself. I go on as normal.
But slowly, imperceptibly, as the rejections continue to drip in, they chafe away at my self-confidence as a writer, eroding its edges like salt water.
Until one day, months and years later, I am walking on the beach trying remember when I last wrote for pleasure, and feel the tears streaming down my face and nose. I haven’t written fiction for months. The thin layer of self-belief has been blasted off, revealing a dark underbelly of gritty doubt, threaded with pity and pain, and a new stoney apathy.
I wrote those lines in early 2024, in that horrible month January which seemed to last forever. I read somewhere that February is a much better month to make new year’s resolutions—particularly as you get past the hump of Valentine’s Day. There’s just a whiff more of hope in the air. The green shoots of the crocuses are visible.
But in January it had been three months since I’d even typed a single word of creative fiction—that freeing form of prose which took me outside myself the way others say activities like knitting, playing piano, or running can do. I’d hammered away at my other lines of work, I’d written emails, Substack posts, WhatsApp texts, and edited my husband’s exhibition copy like my life depended on it. But every time I sat at my computer with 20 uninterrupted non-paid-work minutes to write, just for me, I froze.
I never truly believed in writer’s block before. It seems a complaint of the time-rich—those with enough resources to sit at their desks all day long and work on their own projects, for themselves. Even hearing the words “writer’s block” is enough for me to form a stubborn judgment that said writer is entitled, privileged, and probably delusional. Until last November, words poured out of me in a torrent. I always struggled to keep a cap on word counts, new ideas and projects.
I have completed two unpublished novels, both 80-90k words, reels of prose and short stories, a poetry pamphlet, notebooks of story ideas and research scrawled all over paper and Apple Notes. But the last proper rejection I received in November, from an agent who was reading the full manuscript of my second novel—and had sent multiple emails about being “so excited for this,”— stoppered up the flow entirely. Every time I sat down to write, or even contemplated my third novel—with which I had been giddy with excitement about for more than two years before—I seized up, lost my nerve, and just felt the weight of self-doubt descend over me. This is shite. Noone will ever read this. You are no good at this type of writing. Or any writing. Just forget it.
The negative inner monologue was even more destructive. The only way to make it stop was to abandon the idea of writing at each sitting. And so I did just that, and I didn’t write.
I would think about my next novel-in-progress on a walk perhaps, or while overhearing something relevant to the project on the radio or a podcast, and just feel a deep despondency, and sadness. It was as if my fiction writing was a much-loved former partner I no longer could reach. A friend who’d broken up with me. It had ended abruptly, between me and my novel, and I was heartbroken. I didn’t know how to pick up the pieces.
I could have stopped right there. I told friends in my writing group I didn’t think I’d be able to come anymore. I didn’t think I was cut out for the novel-writing life. I loved my work, journalism, interviewing, Substack, and writing the odd poem. I loved having my life back, having more time for socialising, exercise, ironing even—I would just give up the fiction.
Then I saw someone else write about rejection and thought, yes, maybe I can use this—channel the awful awful feeling of unworthiness into a way to connect with other writers. Writing about it might help.
Lord knows I hear others talk about rejection all the time. The hundreds of rejection letters from agents, and worse, editors when on submission to publishers. Rejected manuscripts, poems, short stories, article pitches. It’s part of the process, you learn to live with it. Bonnie Garmus famously had 98 rejections of her second novel before going on to write Lessons in Chemistry, in her 60s (Francesca Steele’s podcast Write Off is romp with writers through their rejections and ultimate success, and very encouraging!).
told me she’d written eight manuscripts before her ninth was picked up and published. EIGHT.Yes, yes, yes, I agreed. I could deal with rejection too—I was, after all, a hard-nosed journalist for many years. I’d had my stories ripped to shreds, spiked, killed, rejected, and felt a sting for all of two minutes before rushing to get another story lead onto the table. It never bothered me in journalism. I loved feedback and the red pen. Surely I’d built a thick skin through all these years? Couldn’t I totally handle it with creative fiction like I could with journalism?And I did, I had, for so long. My first novel got 30 agent ghostings before I realised I’d made every first-time writer mistake known to man. I’d also written in a genre I didn’t entirely love. And my second novel idea had already taken hold. I happily put it down as a learning process, and moved on. Plus, these weren’t really rejections as such—since I’d just posted something into the void and received no reply. I was still captivated with learning the craft, signing up to evening courses, attending multiple writing and reading groups, learning the ropes and enjoying the creative release outside of responsibilities of work, mothering, house-running.
But that second novel, which I’d written over four years through pregnancy, postpartum, on family holidays, a pandemic, and times I should have been napping—I believed in so much. It had also garnered so much positive praise from all corners of my writing life. Editors told me it was high-concept, timely, and a sure win with agents. Other writers told me they loved the world-building, the characters and most of all the writing. My beta readers were so excited for it they were happy to read multiple versions. People I know in the book world said my submission package was flawless. Agents were actually replying, with personal emails saying how they loved the characters, the plot, the world, the premise. One wrote I was a “talented and imaginative writer,” another that they loved the writing and concept. I kept hearing news segments and radio shows which made my subject matter feel so relevant. I told myself I didn’t care for traditional publishing—I just wanted to share these ideas with the world. And yet, after two small rounds of submission to around seven agents, I started to face the fact this book wouldn’t be released anywhere, would be read by nobody, and that I’d be best off putting it down to learning the craft, and make a start on the third.
Moving through rejection: things that help
I’m not going to tell you to get over it. To move on, or to simply stop worrying, stop feeling bad or whatever. I’ve had my fair share of people share these words to me during difficult moments in my life: grief, anxiety, or heartbreak. Anyone who has been through these life events, which at some point will be all of us, will know that telling a grief-stricken person it’s time to move on will just feel incredibly cold, shaming, and alienating.
I’m a huge fan of everything Michael Rosen has ever written. Most people will remember the “we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we’ve got to go through it,” refrain from We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. But it’s later more recent works: Many Different Kinds of Love, and Getting Better, which have deeply impacted and inspired me. Rosen has dealt with so much grief and sadness in his life. In Getting Better (which I fully recommend as an audiobook—in the UK you can borrow it for free with your library card on BorrowBox), he leaves a series of tips for going through hard times which I won’t list here.
Rejection of a pitch to follow through on a creative project, while different and somewhat tempered, can have some of the same kinds of feelings for me as grief has. The stages of shock, anger, and despair have been similar. The low hum of gnawing sadness in everything. That might sound dramatic to some, and isn’t meant to diminish the loss of a person at all—which can’t compare. But is has felt like its own brand of heartbreak. And many writers reading to this point, I think, will understand that.
This kind of writerly grief, I have found, is something really only other writers and artists will understand. There’s no point talking to your family member or non-writer friend about it. They’ll probably tell you to “stay in the here and now,” or “focus on what you can do,” or something equally crushing.
In fact, while I was in the thick of my personal blend of what I now think of as “book grief,” believing my much-loved book will never see the light of day, and maybe I’d never continue fiction writing, I couldn’t really speak to my writer friends even. I couldn’t listen to my favourite writer podcasts, read my favourite novelists or new work within my genre. I just had to totally, utterly disconnect from creative writing. Though I never stopped thinking about my new novel idea. It just always brought along an emotional backpack of sadness.
I think, looking back, the reason it reminds me of miscarriage before you’ve had a child, is it challenges your self desires and pushes you to reconsider what you want for your life. It requires lessening your ambition, changing tack, finding a new goal.
But my goal was just to get back to the joy of writing, the escape, the drug. And that hope started to bud sometime in February. Which is when I knew I had to write this letter to book two.
If writerly-grief comes in the form of cold rejection, hope seems to come in the form of friendship, and a spark of personal encouragement.
One single person read my manuscript in February—an offer they gave freely—and said some very encouraging words. That was all I needed to move forward. It removed one tiny stone that allowed a little flow of water to emerge from a blocked stream, and as I tentatively started writing again, more and more little rocks disappeared and the flowing river emerged once more.
This isn’t a post about my traditional publishing success after rejection. It’s more subtle than that. The success here is the resilience which emerges after the hardest knock yet. The ability to move forward in small steps, and find another way to a passion and practice that I love so much, and had missed from my life during those barren months.
Here’s a conclusive list of things which happened together, and allowed the feelings written at the top of this post to simply … evaporate:
A jolt of personal encouragement. this came in the form of an act of generosity, from another writer. She knows who she is: thank you.
Finding an inspiring teacher / course. I read
#PANIC which I loved, and started a paid subscription to his Substack where he shares brilliant posts on writing “killer prose.” Something in his words once again tickled my curiosity and beginners’ mindset, which was a path to creativity.Having a deadline. The day I started writing again was after a 12 week scan for our new baby (surprise … buried lede or what?!). The bulk of my second novel had been researched and written when I was pregnant with our first child around 2019 and 2020, but I hadn’t managed to finish the manuscript before she was born. I knew that there comes a point especially in postpartum when all you can think of is feeding/sleep routines, and I was never one of those new mums who wrote while their baby napped (ours was not a great napper, and my four-month maternity leave—to paraphrase words of Ali Wong—was entirely used up to heal my demolished-ass body), plus my brain was so fried with post-natal anxiety, and juggling getting back to work, and the pandemic, that I wasn’t able to re-pick up the project until she was about 12 months old. Problems with the manuscript probably stem from this big gap in the process, so there’s a big part of me that wants to use my scraps of time I should be “resting” to put words to paper.
Letting your characters filter back in. I did a workshop with Sadie Frost sometime in the winter months, and three parts of it were getting us to sit with our eyes closed thinking about our setting, characters, and so forth. No typing, no notebooks. These exercises were incredibly reassuring and also freeing. Most of my plot development for book two was done while sitting in the dark waiting for my daughter to fall asleep. The inability to do anything, to look at my phone (too bright!), or distract myself allowed me to go into a kind of Sherlock Holmes-style mind palace of meditation, and follow my characters as they explored my world. This created a weird sort of deep mind practice where I could access my characters and settings from anywhere. It’s started to happen with book three already, the trick it just letting it happen, and no reaching for the nearest device.
Post-It motivations. I have a few handy ones around the office which keep me from drifting too far into that negative inner voice. One reads: “The antidote to comparison is hard work,” another is a card from my sister with the slogan, “You are fucking awesome, keep that shit up.” They don’t feel like my voice, and so they both immediately jolt me back into a positive state of mind.
A childhood memory of belief. During my A-Levels, my English teacher took me aside after one of our lessons on The Romantics and told me I’d taken the module as far as I could as a student of English Literature (I’d go on to get full marks for the subject). Now, she said, to really learn more about The Romantics, you should try writing poetry yourself, and try their style and others. She sparked a lifelong love of writing poetry, which bleeds into other areas of my writing life. I cherish this memory—and how it sort of kick-started my love of libraries too—and find it much better to dwell on to keep inspiration flowing. In fact, I think a lot of the trouble with rejection lies in the school system where you can easily jump through hoops to get your straight As. It’s not like that in work or creative endeavours. So I found a memory which wasn’t related to the joy of received all As—and it was tied to the joy of discovering poetry. Reading has always been the chief love, over and above writing.
Time. Similar to other moments of grief, I’ve thrown myself into my work with additional fervour, letting the hurts just slip by through distraction. This works for me. It helps that I absolutely love my job, everyone I work with, and what I get to do day-to-day. Eventually, the thing subsides, and a new chapter starts. You can’t force it, it just happens.
I hope other writers will read this and feel a modicum of empathy and support if you are going through a tough patch, creatively.
There’s no happy ending to scroll through to here. But, I will add that, after one last heavy edit and reversioning of book two (probably version #165), I’m giving it one last shot with submissions. So if you’re an agent and interested, do get in touch. And paid subscribers can see my query letter below.
What do you find helps you recover from rejection, book grief, and stagnant writing periods? I’d love to connect with other writers about this delicate subject. Feel free to share your story in the comments below:
The query letter
I’ve been by various agents, writers, editors and people in the publishing industry that my query letter is spot on, so I’m sharing it below, as I know other writers love to read these. Good luck!