Emma Ilene's Blog: emma wrote what!

I have a confession. Recently, I have really not been feeling writingtwt pitch events. At first, I didn’t really understand why. I just knew I wasn’t enjoying them as much as I had in the past. So, I took it up with some people who I knew might be able to help put my feelings into words: writers.

Yeah, I’ll stop with the cheesy one-liners eventually. For about 2 years now, I have seen more and more writers voicing their disinterest? frustration? with pitch events. I recently took a poll on my Instagram stories, and the results seem to confirm it.

Here I am never letting the academic in me die as I take a poll.

The majority (55%) felt pitch events “need improvement.”

I also got this extremely informational written response, which really highlights how I feel about pitch vents:

So why do so many people have an issue with pitch events? What’s the deal?

I mean, there are a few things. Part of it might be due to the loss of community on Twitter (which isn’t the fault of any pitch event but more so a disillusioned billionaire whom I won’t bother naming). The other part seems to be something that we *can* fix.

Making the new pitch is due to the loss of purpose (and coordination) behind pitch events.

Some WritingTwt History circa 2021

I first joined writingtwt in 2021, which I sometimes jokingly tweet about as “the golden age of writingtwt.” Mostly because everyone was around then. Agents, editors, and Writers at all different stages of their publishing journey. Back then (Jesus, has it really been four years??) there were an assortment of pitch events. PitDark, PitMad, KissPit, PBPit, and SFFPit are some to name a few. Some were associated with writing mentorship programs (PitMad was tied to PitchWars, for example) while others were genre-specific (KissPit, SFFPit, PitDark, etc). There were also ones meant specifically for marginalized authors to help boost their stories to pub professionals (LatinxPitch, PitchDis, APIPit, etc). That's how pitch events got started. By uplifting marginalized voices who could benefit from having a pitch period built for them. It also made it easier for agents/editors to access and find more of their stories. In short, that was the idea behind pitch events. Give people a chance to stand out from being buried in that oh so infamous slush pile every querying author wants to get out of.

They turned into a lot more than just that. Pitch events were huge for the community. When PitMad would run in August, people would start prepping in June. Agented authors would offer pitch critique giveaways, people built lists of authors who were participating so they could support them later, etc, etc. I hope you get a vibe for the magic that was in the air even if my nostalgia taints it a bit. Some lore: I only got to participate in PitMad once before it was announced it was disbanding! OUCH! But it was seriously the most fun I ever had prepping and participating in a pitch event.

Clearly, I have not gotten over losing WritingTwt (RIP 20110-2022)

When I was new to the community, I connected with many people I am still friends with today through pitch events, as I got to hear about their WIPs and cheer them on! Most of those friends I met in pitch events are agented or on their way to getting published right now! Hell, a lot have books already out and they are under contract for their sophomore and junior novels! I can think of several names off the top of my head who are now New York Times Bestselling authors thanks to Twitter pitch events. So, yeah. Pitch events were huge community and career builders. That hasn’t stopped either. Today’s pitch events are still the reason a lot of people are agented today! I know of so many authors who connected with their agents via a pitch event. Including myself! My agent reached out to me initially through pitch events, and when I participated in the “an agent’s guide to…” trend, where you pitch your book in a series of graphic slides, my agent requested my book, DAGGER OF THE TSAR, through that pitch! The rest is history.

While this is an older pitch of DOTT, look at me and my future agent here :') AWWWWW!!!

But today, most of these don’t run anymore. Which means a lot of the built-in, organized pitch events are gone. The way they were planned, run, and organized went with them.

So, naturally, with the loss of pitch events, there is a hole in the community that a lot of writers miss. I think people on wrintingtwt have tried to solve this by creating *new* pitch events. Which, y'know, is exactly what you need to do to get new pitch events going! I feel like what has been lost in translation are the rules and planning that went into successful, past pitch events. In short, pitch events have really lost their centralization, coordination, and I’ll even say purpose. This definitely isn't an assessment of all pitch events running currently. I really admire QuestPit, for example, because it’s organized nicely, and I’ve seen it reignite some magic to pitch events that the old ones had. There are other great pitch events out there, too. QuestPit certainly isn’t the only one. I just think now it’s starting to get muddled. I see new pitch events popping up almost monthly, sometimes weekly. Some never have their first event, others disband after two or so events. My point is it's getting muddled.

Past pitch events (like the ones I’ve mentioned above) had clear, strict rules that helped keep authors and publishing professionals alike in the know. The ones that most of them shared were

You can only pitch completed manuscripts

Events ran biannually (give or take)

Nowadays, I rarely see a pitch event that follows these cardinal rules. And it’s turned into a problem.

The Current State of Affairs

Let’s dig into No. 1 because I really do think it's one of the major kryptonites to pitch events today.

I don’t mean to be dramatic, but back in 2021 writingtwt if you pitched an incomplete manuscript, you would get verbally stoned to death. No, seriously. I remember when someone openly admitted to it, and the TL was full of “this is not okay” rambles for at least a few days. It WAS that serious if you broke that ru;e. Back then, I didn’t understand why. But girrlllll, now I do.

For starters, it gets extremely overwhelming. Not just for writers, but for publishing professionals participating. When a lot of people are pitching manuscripts that may not be close to querying or that they haven’t started writing, it takes up space on the timeline for pitches by authors who have finished writing their books. For those authors who can send the requested query/full on the same day the agent likes the pitch. The increase in unfinished manuscript pitches led to a decrease in visibility for manuscripts that were query-ready.

Last year, a few pitch events ran into this problem. What I heard along the pipeline was that it was confusing and frustrating for writers and agents. Writers weren’t sure how to interact with pitches (do you boost the pitches? does this event allow you to like the pitch, or was that the other one?) Then, agents who liked pitches didn’t see the requested work in their inbox as quickly as normal. Maybe they will see it two years later or 8 months later. Maybe they never see it.

As industry professionals, we need to remember that most of our work is contractual. Meaning, most of us don’t get paid hourly to do the work we do in this industry. That goes for agent,s too. Their time is valuable, just like ours is. It takes time for an agent to read through pitches and requests from the pitching writer. In the past, agents knew that the manuscripts they chose to “like” were 1) completed and 2) query-ready. Meaning all the pitches they were taking time to look through were all something they could potentially offer on as soon as they read the full. Which, for some agents, meant maybe the pitch they just requested would be their newest client in a week or a month or more or less.

Now, that's not the case. There’s no guarantee they’ll ever see the requested manuscript in their inbox, or if they do, there’s no guarantee *when* they’ll see it. I get why many of them have decided not to be as actively involved, given that. The time they spend interacting with pitches may be a waste at the end of the day.

I say “waste” with the approach that publishing is a business. Not in a way to be mean or to say our pitches aren’t worth someone's time. Agents are paid on a contract basis. Which means, the more book deals they sign for clients, the more money they see coming in. Imagine you are an agent. If you’re query inbox is full with 2,000 queries (which at this point isn't even an overestimate for most agents), would you choose to spend two hours scrolling through pitches on Twitter that you may not see the query for for another six months at best, or would you spend it going through your slush?

If I were an agent, I’d spend it going through my slush. My slush pile has manuscripts that are ready to be queried, that are completed, and could be potential clients (and thus potential paychecks). Unfinished manuscripts that are being pitched in pitch events that allow them aren’t any of these things yet. And I’m not trying to be callous with this oversimplification. I just know many agents don’t agent as their full-time job. Just like many of us writers have day jobs to pay the bills. Lots of us are trying to be successful enough where we can do our passion full-time, but many of us aren’t there yet (me included!). Which means you do have to be creative and smart with your time. And nowadays, it may not be smart to interact with pitch events if you’re trying to make the most of your hours (and your pay).

As a writer who can’t afford to author full-time currently, I’ve started thinking about my time in the same way. I’m working on books that are for traditional publishing right now because that is the best use of my time to hopefully one day get paid for my work. I spend less time working on other things (like other wips or creative ideas like that podcast I keep teasing). I do this because I want to spend my time working on things that can (eventually) lead to pay. So, I don’t blame others in the industry for moving the same way. Publishing is a business, and we all deserve to get paid for our hard hours.

Oversaturation of the Timeline

There’s also the issue of the timing of pitch events. In the past, most pitch events ran maybe twice a year. Sometimes they ran 3. Other than that, they didn’t run every few months, and once they announced their dates, the other pitch events respected it.

Everyone knew PitMad was one time in August and another around May, so even before PitMad officially announced their event days so other pitch events knew not to try to run in August or May. They chose other months (like October and March). Now, pitch events are running closer together. Last year, there were two events that ran within a week of each other. It was honestly exhausting to keep up with, and it made me burn out quickly. A sentiment echoed amongst other writers I spoke to about it. I rarely participate in pitch events now. Before I was agented, I usually sent one pitch in as a “at least I got SOMETHING out there to catch eyes” pat on the back, but other than that, I spent zero time prepping or really participating in pitch events. I was just too overwhelmed by my overflowing feed and by how many pitch events were happening back to back. Now that I’m agented, I haven’t really felt a draw to come back to most pitch events because of this (but of course it isn’t the sole factor but alas).

There’s also the matter of a lack of preparation that leads to this oversaturation of events. Past, successful pitch events announced their dates at least a month or two ahead of time. Others announced their yearly schedule right at the start of the year. There used to be people who would compile a list at the start of January so you could see the annual pitch event schedule. Now, something like that would be hard to maintain accuracy. I feel like there has been an increase in events that pop up, announce their event is within the next 1-5 days, then disappear again. I don’t like this strategy as a pitching author myself. I like to build support lists and be given more than a few days’ notice to write new pitches, and I think if you want more industry professionals to participate, you probably need to give them more than a few days or a week to learn about the event, too! But alas, I do not run a pitch event. I can only comment with my observations about what works vs. what doesn’t work.

For now, all I can say is the current setup is not working. Which sometimes makes my eye twitch because we know what a working formula is, we just aren’t using it anymore.

Is There a Solulu or Am I Delulu?

So what's the solution? How do you go back to when pitch events were not only useful, but built community?

I’m going to be honest, it requires an overhaul. I wrote a thread about this once, and I think my stance hasn’t changed much. If you want engagement from industry professionals, you need it to be structured to fit their needs. Although I’m open to other ideas, this probably means requiring query-ready manuscripts to be pitched and being very clear about that. I’d also add that giving people more notice about events can’t do any harm. Waking up to find out about a pitch event happening the day of is never ideal for max success for writers and agents/editors alike.

A larger part of this is to recentralize pitch events and keep the ones that are crucial. Mainly, the pitch events that are genre, age group, and marginalized writer specific. How would you cut events? Well, to be honest, that’s out of my (and your) wheelhouse. It’s not like we can vote to remove a pitch event. Writingtwt is very much not a democracy lol. I’ve also been told that reaping all the pitch events to fight in an arena is also a no-go. So that’s where pitch event organizers step in.

There are some pitch events I see now that work better as writing trends, not official pitch events trying to be effective to garner industry engagement and boost writers. Not everything has to be a pitch event. Want to start a trend where we share our books in the form of a movie poster? Do it! A song lyric? Yay, even better. But it doesn’t *need* to be a pitch event. Utilize writingtwt trends or community events (think Pitlight, which is run by Amanda Woody and is meant for manuscripts at ANY stage of the game, so you can meet and connect with other authors, and is also NOT for industry engagement). We used to have a few writers on writingtwt who every week would post a trend for all of us to participate in. These were great and awesome, and were fun. But they weren’t made into pitch events.

My ramblings will probably amount to nothing *shrug*. It’s not really fair to ask one pitch event to step down while another goes on. My plea is basically this: for event organizers to communicate with each other about event dates and to review current pitch rules.

But who knows? Maybe pitch events will find a new, better way to coexist with each other. Maybe not. Maybe Twitter will die off by then. I’m already spending more time on Threads anyhow. Either way, I have a lot of love for the community and the things people created to uplift other writers, and I want to see it working again.

Until then, I tip my hat.

Sincerely,

emma (wrote what?!)

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I read my first HIGMA post sometime in 2019 when I googled, “how to get a literary agent” for the first time. I started reading them for sport soon after. I have probably read hundreds in the 6 years that have transpired from that first, rudimentary Google search.

So, if you found this post from googling “how to get a literary agent,” hello! I am Emma Ilene and I am a newly agented author. This is my story on how I did just that so buckle up!

Fair warning, this is the longest newsletter/blog I’ve written and substack is currently yelling at me for making it “too long to read in email.” I have no idea what that means so I guess if you’re getting this in your inbox and it looks… extremely weird? Mayyybeeee click into substack to read this one!

Table of Contents Because That’s What We Do Here in Authorland

I am splitting this post into a few parts so depending on where you want to start, feel free to use this as your navigation bar! How I Started Writing feels pretty explanatory in itself, but I also have Querying is a Trench where I talk about my first two unsuccessful attempts in the trenches with my book, DAGGER OF THE TSAR, or DAGGER/DOTT for short. It also gives some sneak peeks into where I almost went down the self-pub route and how I got foreign rights interest that catapulted me back into the trenches! Now it’s Mid-January and I have to Send out My finished Draft :,) is where I would start if you want to skip over my entire R&R writing process and just cut to the chase of reading my Query Letter and offer process (which is under Getting the Offer). I’ve also included my Query Stats! at the end of this newsletter since I love me a good stat post.

Okay now that housekeeping is done, let’s get rolling!

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How I Started Writing

Technically I can think of a few moments where being a writer kind of clicked for me. I attempted my first book when I was 11 (which was about two sisters where one sister turned evil and KILLED their parents for the throne. Yep, even at 11 I had some dramatic flair) but then abandoned it after 3 chapters. I also put in a TON of hours in fanfic on fandom forums. Fanfic was my birthplace!

But let’s touch on a few moments that solidified me into a writer anyway:

At 10 or 11, my grandpa got me a notebook (which I still have) so I could write stories down. I never expressed verbal interest in writing but I think my grandpa just paid attention to what I liked doing (spending a lot of time by myself typing on a keyboard)

Holding a copy of CATCHING FIRE that I stole off my brother’s bookshelf and thinking to myself “Haha that would be so scary to write a WHOLE BOOK, no thanks”

Started reading fanfic on ao3/wattpad/tumblr, which made me WANT to write but seemed impossible

Then came December 2018. I had read a popular YA fantasy series a few months earlier and loved it. Wrong. I didn’t “love” it, I WORSHIPPED IT. I also wanted more of the series. Ever watch or read something and then your gnawing at the cages of your enclosure to get MORE of the story and characters? Yep, that was me.

But, instead of reading fanfic, I had scene ideas churning in my head. So, one morning I opened up a Google Doc and started typing. I quite literally never edited this manuscript. Nor did I plot it. Nor did I edit it. But, I did post it on Wattpad, a writing platform. This is the first time I experienced building a community with other writers. I literally still have friends from today that I first met on Wattpad. Insane. It was also the first time I had readers! I was lucky enough to get a select few readers who loved my fanfic and kept up with my (never) weekly updates as I uploaded the manuscript chapter by chapter. And before you ask, yeah my profile on Wattpad still exists but you’ll never find this manuscript because I privated it. My worst nightmare would be for someone to read what my writing was like when I was 16. I am shuddering thinking about it.

While I may cringe at the thought of rereading that manuscript, it did tell me I could actually write a book. Yeah, maybe a badly written one but hey a book is a book! This manuscript also gave me the “writing itch.” I basically define this as, “If I don’t write something right now I’m going to peel my skin off and set it on fire.” I get this a lot nowadays, but it was my first time experiencing it then. To scratch the itch, I had the idea to write a fantasy Anastasia Romanov retelling where Anastasia survived the revolution. Sound familiar? It should be because this is what became DAGGER OF THE TSAR. If you follow me on my socials, you should be tired of hearing about it because it’s the only book I’ve let myself tease online for like 3 years (I promise you guys I do write other books and hopefully you’ll hear about them in the future)

Now we’re in 2020. I technically wrote the first chapters of DAGGER OF THE TSAR in the fall of 2019, but abandoned them since they were literally 5 chapters of prologue (I know, I was insane. But I did NOT know any of the rules in publishing at this time LOL) But, I consider 2020 the year I truly started drafting it. And yes, DAGGER OF THE TSAR is the book that got me my agent. I still cannot believe I can say that. Only, the version I first wrote in 2019-2020ish is nothing like the one that got me agented today. Which is why I’m setting this newsletter into parts.

Book 1 will be the first version of DOTT, Book 2 will be the second, and Book 3 (the version that got me agented) will be the last. There’s this saying amongst writers I strongly believe in that goes, “You either write 10 books before you’re published or your first book 10 times.” I really am no exception to this. I rewrote DOTT a lot. Some parts have probably been rewritten a dozen times. Or 200. I stopped keeping count a while ago. I have other drafts of other sandboxes I have written, but I kept coming back to DOTT. She was a nut I really wanted to crack, I guess!

Anyway, let’s get on the DOTT Versions and how I queried each of them!

Querying is a Trench

Book 1

I wrote this version of DOTT when I was 16 (a mere infant) and was 17 when I submitted it to PitchWars! No fulls from PW occurred, but I did meet the amazing group called Velvet Steel which boasts some AMAZING members, friends, and authors. (Peep Jenni Howell’s debut BOYS WITH SHARP TEETH pls. Jenni is a fantastic human AND writer!!).

To my surprise, most of my rejections were that “Anastasia Romanov stories don’t sell” and “retellings aren’t in.” I figured, well that’s the entire premise of this book so I guess we just keep querying it! Eventually, after actively querying it for like 2 months, I stopped sending it out due to a mental health dip. This pause turned into me mentally shelving DOTT and I started working on a stream of other projects.

Eventually, once my health was better I started feeling the nag to query again. I was pretty active on “writingtwt” at this time (and somehow still am despite the meltdown of the platform by the child-like maneuvers of a certain billionaire) so my community around me was still actively querying, getting rep, book deals, etc. But, I wasn’t sure if DOTT was right for traditional publishing anymore. I kept thinking back to the rejections that said it couldn’t sell or wasn’t wanted by the market. In December of 2023, I announced I was going to self-publish the manuscript.

I did not expect the support I got when I announced going indie. On TikTok, strangers who had never met me were DMing and commenting asking me when they could order, asking about arcs, etc etc. It was like all the dreams were happening. On Twitter, long-time authors I admired for SO LONG began to reach out with support (and I can call so many of them my friends now).

You might also remember me freaking out because my long-time favorite Booktube, withcindy, featured DOTT in an “anticipated 2024 reads” video. I felt immensely supported by the community and SO excited for this next step. I had a whole self-pub plan for DOTT, had the GoodReads link, had release plans, and then something happened.

Book 2

In the spring of 2024, a foreign rights editor at a big foreign publisher emailed me wanting to inquire about foreign rights for DOTT! My first reaction was “lol scam email of someone impersonating an editor smh” and I almost deleted the email. I didn’t though, and when I got home I reread it and realized… it doesn’t look like a scam. A quick Google search showed me that no one was reporting any impersonation scams was going on with this publisher or editor either. It started setting in that the DOTT interest I had that I laughed off as a scam was not a scam at all! So, I did what any rational writer does: I ran into my friend’s discord server we share and started screaming.

Foreign rights were something I had no idea about (or if that was wise to sell rights pre-publication) so I reached out to agents for advice on what to do with it. Funnily enough, I initially tweeted about it because I had absolutely ZERO idea who to ask, if it was okay to ask agents, or WHAT. So I tweeted it, and to my surprise, a lot of agented authors and agents reached out with help.

I was advised to query with the interest in hand since DOTT was not published yet. With an agent, I would have someone on my side for any possible contract negotiations with said publisher! So, I planned to get back into the trenches. All my self-pub plans were halted and I revised my entire 95k-long manuscript in a weekend. From my tweet, I had agents reach out asking me to send DOTT their way so I wanted to get the manuscript out in a pinch! To give you an idea on my timeline, I received the foreign rights interest on 4/24/24. I sent out my revised fulls and initial query back on 4/27/24. I still have no idea how I cut some 20k words in my manuscript and added some 15k in return in 3 days but alas I am insane but I am free.

So, as my fulls were out I sent out some queries with the interest and just did what we all have to do in the trenches: wait. I’m not good at waiting, but this term in the trenches was very different from my last one. I hadn’t just revised my book, I also revised my pitch and query letter (Arianna Siddiqui, my amazing friend and a kickass agent on her own, actually helped me fix my query for round 2 in trenches with DOTT). I seriously credit Arianna’s editorial eye and market knowledge with the success I had. She helped me figure out exactly how to pitch the romance and the gritty vibes I wanted to emulate in the pitch.

And it worked! I started getting a lot of action on DOTT this time and was lucky enough to have a really good request rate (I think QueryTracker spit out like a 45-50% request rate at this time). Small disclaimer for my querying crowd: if you’re actively querying, a request rate is something you can use to see if your pitch is working, but I wouldn’t use it as a marker for “success.” I have had friends with a 9% request rate and still get agented. I’ve also had friends with a 60% request rate and die in the trenches.

Despite the requests, I only queried DOTT for maybe 2-3 months. While I revised DOTT on a line level and reworked a few scenes, much of the book was original from when I wrote it back when I was 16-17. In short, it reflected what I liked as a teen and also my skillset as a teen writer. I had grown in my writing and wanted a lusher, darker, and different story for DOTT. When I had a full rejection come back emulating my thoughts on a completely rewritten DOTT (aka they wanted to see DOTT sit more firmly in the adult space with a heightened romance and darker elements) I immediately connected with it. And then I had an idea… what if I completely rewrote the manuscript?

I asked the agent if I could revise and resubmit (aka R&R) and to my surprise they said YES!

Once I got a green light to do it, I honestly stopped sending queries and just waited to hear back on the fulls I had out already. Here is where my note about the “illusion of a request rate” comes in. I had almost a 50% request rate, and when all my fulls came back I had 0 offers of representation. See! Request rates mean nothing! So don’t let that number scare you when you see it on QueryTracker. It’s a great tool, but isn’t a crystal ball.

One thing I did do though is with my vision for an R&R if a full rejection came back mostly complimentary, as a close yes, or with notes similar to what I wanted to fix in my rewrite I did ask about a possible R&R. I think in most cases R&Rs are given to the author, and not asked by them. I felt comfortable inquiring because 1) I seriously admired and respected every single agent that had DOTT and 2) The worse that could happen is no.

I often think about what would have happened if I never asked that first agent about an R&R and shudder because I think I would have shelved DOTT for good!

Book 3

After securing my R+Rs you would think I would have immediately got to work on revising DOTT. WRONG! I did ✨nothing✨

Literally did not write a single word for the edit for 3 months. To give you an idea I got my first R&R in June and didn’t start the edit until October *insert skull emoji here because wow emma that was sooooo dumb* But I did have a reason for this (or at least an excuse)! lol!

I knew what I wanted to change in DOTT, but I didn’t know how. So, I just let myself simmer on it. By “simmer” I mean watching TV shows and movies, going to the beach, bed rotting, and not letting a single thought of my book come into my mind. This sounds counterproductive, but I swear it works for my ADHD-addled brain. If I don’t think about it, I won’t stress about it. If I can’t stress about it, it can’t scare me. I even made a TikTok in which I asked people to bully me into writing my R&R.

If you ask the internet to bully you, they will not let you down. (Special thanks to Kage and AJ Yorek for smacking me upside the head!)

Somehow this highly-unlikely-&-very-unproductive plan worked. I was sitting in my bed one night (bored out of my mind because I missed writing and I had nothing else to watch after burning through all my reality tv shows and movies) when the idea for a new DAGGER OF THE TSAR came into my mind. I won’t go into too much detail about new DOTT, but essentially it turned old DOTT from a YA fantasy to a darker, lusher, and hotter adult fantasy with crossover appeal.

Within an hour I had the first act planned out mentally with a few notes jotted onto the pictured notebook. The next night I was writing. This kicked off my mad sprint of finishing DOTT in 7 weeks. Which I had never done before. It usually takes me 7-8 months to finish a book, so asking myself to finish it in what? 1/3? 1/8? 1/1,000,000,000? of that time seemed insane. But like I said, I am insane but I am free.

No, in all seriousness, I really only think I accomplished this for 3 reasons.

I have ADHD, which means when I hyperfocus I can crank IN. Literally all sorts of responsibilities fall away and my main focus is MY TASK. You should have seen my bedroom and my desk after I finished my draft. They were a mess and I was a worst one.

I am a procrastinator who thrives off deadlines. I put a very hard deadline on myself to have my draft done by January. I am the kind of student who will sit and write my 10-ish page essay in an afternoon (if you are my professor who is reading this, please promptly forget you read that). I just like to crank things out when the heat of the deadline is starting to burn my skin. This may sound insane, and you’d be right! But it’s how I work. I love making a deadline. The rush of it makes it (by “it” I mean late nights, no sleep, and no breaks) worth it.

I love the “carrot” I had R+Rs that I knew I wanted to send out. If I finished my manuscript quickly, I could send it out to the agents quickly. So, the carrot on the stick kept me moving. I realize now that this metaphor just makes me sound like a pig in Minecraft but oh well.

I was writing with friends. My most productive days were when I was doing writing sprints with friends.

Anyway, I drafted DOTT over three months (October-December 2024). I just did not write every day. You’ll see what I mean later, but I only locked in to write the last 5ish weeks of my deadline! This is how I normally operate it. The beginning is slow and then once I pass the fun & games section of the draft I usually start hitting bigger daily word counts.

Fun fact, I also didn’t write most of November for a very specific reason. The US was in an election year, and so I promptly lost all creativity after our election was decided :)))) ANYWAY, I logged my WC daily so check out how I hit 70k in 7 weeks:

October

November

Ft. the epic 14-day run of nothingness post-election

December

For fun, here is my month-by-month word count as well:

October: 7,352 words

November: 10, 940 words

December: 53,368 words

As you can see, one month was particularly busier than the others LOL. I wrote more than half of my book in December (to catch up because of my election slump). By the end, I had a draft of just about 70k words. The first week of January was filled with me going back to chapters I skipped to finish writing them (yes, I sometimes write out of order. yeah. I’m a panster who writes out of order. When I said I was insane I really, really meant it). After I did that, I spent the next few days doing small line edits and copy edits to make sure everything lined up correctly with name changes, etc.

The bulk of my editing went quickly because I was sending out DOTT chapters to beta readers weekly from November to December. To my surprise, there were 0 big structural changes from the first draft to the final draft. Which surprised me because I completely pantsed this book without an outline. I fully expected my plot to become a mess at some point, but it just worked out where it didn’t! I still have no idea how I managed that but tah dah!

Instead of having to make huge structural changes to fix my first draft, my edits consisted mostly of strengthening the prose and expanding on interiority based on beta reader feedback. I’ve been told I write “clean” drafts, so I think this played a role in how quickly I was able to edit since it’s mostly just going back and writing in sections I skipped, etc.

Now it’s Mid-January and I have to Send out My finished Draft :,)

With a draft done, I had a few agents who liked the pitch on Twitter, and I had my R&Rs to send out. You would think I would be feeling happy and ready to go. I was not. I think at this point I had just spent way too much time reading my own writing. I felt horrible about my draft. I thought the plot was good, but the writing was terrible. I hated every sentence I was painstakingly proofreading. I started seriously doubting sending out DOTT at all.

But, I had a deadline to meet. I needed my “carrot” of sending my book out. I also had good writing friends tell me I was being ridiculous. Thank god for them (you know who you are, wee wains). So I wrote out my query letter + synopsis, told my self-doubts to shut up, and went to send out DOTT.

The Query Letter

This is the query letter that eventually landed me 3 offers of representation.

Dear (Agent Name),

I’m thrilled to share DAGGER OF THE TSAR, an adult fantasy complete at 75,000 words with crossover and series potential. Inspired by the story of Anastasia Romanov and steeped in Slavic culture, it combines the sizzling enemies-to-lovers romance in THE PHEONIX KING by Aparna Verma and the twisty, dark court intrigue in Thea Guanzon’s THE HURRICANE WARS.

In Sarlatova, an empire under siege by a ruthless tsar, 24-year-old Alya survives by ruling in the shadows as a notorious assassin. There is a catch to her lucrative career choice: no one can know she’s the assassin. So when a powerful, royal client with unsettling charm and sly hands threatens to expose her identity to the world, she strikes a risky deal: help him eliminate the tsar's enemies from within the palace walls in exchange for keeping her identity buried. To succeed, Alya must work alongside someone almost as deadly as her: the beautiful and ruthless Crown Prince Nikolay Volkov.

Inside the palace walls, Alya learns it isn’t just rich nobles she must kill. Rumors stir that a long-lost Raskov heir survives and rallying rebel forces seek to restore them as the rightful heir to the throne. To maintain order, Alya and Nikolay must hunt down the heir to quell a rebellion before it can ignite. But if the heir is found, it threatens to unearth a secret Alya has destroyed herself to protect—that she's the lost heir Nikolay seeks to destroy.

With palace secrets unraveling and enemies on all sides, Alya’s forced to face the possibility that the people she has been ordered to kill may be her one chance at survival—and that the greatest threat to the tsar’s reign is herself.

Born in California, I grew up on imaginary stories in my head where sticks became swords and blankets became capes. Aside from writing, I’m a university student specializing in health policy and am currently researching at the University of Oxford. In my free time, I am an iced coffee fanatic and enjoy adding books to my endless TBR.

All my best,

Emma Ilene

I plan to do a breakdown of my query letter in a later newsletter, but overall I do think this letter was strong! I finally figured out how to balance pitching my plot + romance, which I think helps a lot in today’s current market. As of critiques I have for it, maybe the first paragraph is a bit wordy? But hey! It didn’t scare agents away so maybe that’s just my perfectionism coming out.

One thing I will say about my query is I did not personalize it. Why? Well, I used to personalize every single query I sent out. Not only was this a huge time commitment, but I don’t really think it helps turn a query into a request! I know, I know, this is a slightly hot take! But truly, if an agent wants to read more based on your submission they will request your manuscript with or without a personalization. This isn’t to say I hate personalizations (I think they are great and can be used to make your query stronger). I even personalized some of my queries when an agent listed a specific thing on their MSWL that my book had. Other than those one or two instances, the query above is exactly how I sent it to agents!

I sent my queries and R&rs out on January 13th. After sending them out, I sat in wait. This wasn’t my first time in the trenches. I knew this was likely going to be a months-long process and more than likely was going to result in no offers. I was both at peace with it and dreading a possible death in the trenches. My brain was ricocheting between both feelings at a dangerous speed.

To my continued shock, there was no months long wait. 8 days after I sent my queries, I was sitting in one of my undergrad classes when an email notification flashed onto my screen. The contents of said email made me gasp audibly very silent classroom: an agent reached out gushing about DOTT and wanting to hop on a call to discuss representation.

Getting the Offer

Let’s pause. I wish I could say I jumped up and down. I wish I could say I walked out of my classroom and fainted. I also wish I could say I screamed or cried. How I didn’t do any of these things, I have no idea. Instead, I just clicked on my writing friend’s Discord server and screamed via all caps and screaming emojis instead. Now, don’t worry. I definitely was having a silent scream going on because I started getting really weird looks from my classmates because I looked kind of looked like The Scream

So I whispered, “SORRY” to my annoyed classmates and replied to the offering agent saying, “ohmygodhihelloheyyesIwouldlovetogetonacallwithyou.”

The offering agent and I scheduled our call for the next morning at a completely normal time around 10 AM. At 4 AM the following day, 6 hours before my call, I was awake. And vomiting. (TMI? But hey I said I would tell you the WHOLE story). No worries though I was vomiting for a good reason. I wasn’t sick, I just get extremely nauseous when I’m highly stressed. For me, stress can be good or bad. Stress/anticipation over a call I do NOT want to screw up and have been dreaming about for like 4 years? Good stress! Even if it makes me vomit! I literally had my head in the toilet bowl and thought, “This is publishing, baby!”

Anyway. I got on the phone with the first offering agent (Agent #1). Since I had less than 24 hours to prep, I solicited the help of some of my agented friends to get a list of questions to ask on The Call (THANK YOU SO MUCH RACHEL, SOUMYA, and ARI). As it turns out, I didn’t have to ask many of the questions I had. The agent touched on almost everything my friends and I thought to ask during our call! Which I think is a great sign the offering agent knows their stuff and came prepared. It put me at so much ease that when the call ended I immediately sent out nudges to other agents with the query or full about the offer.

I received some step asides (which is expected btw!) and some messages to let me know they’d be reading and getting back to me soonish.

One thing I will say is I asked for 3 weeks. I did this because 1) I had just started querying. No agent had a chance to get me further up in their slush or had started reading my full, so I wanted to give agents as much time as possible. 2) I wanted to give my book its best chance.

If someone came to me and asked, “Hey should I ask for 2 or 3 weeks?” I would say 3 weeks no question asked. I know 2 weeks is the industry standard, but a large number of agented writers told me to ask for 3 to give an extra window for my book. At the end of the day, an extra week isn’t going to hurt to ask for. If an agent seems to object to waiting 3 weeks, I’d consider it a red flag. You want an agent supportive of you, and that wants the best for you. With how slow everything is, I think 3 weeks really gives you that chance to count all your ducks and give agents that extra week to read your manuscript (and hopefully offer!)

Stepping off my soapbox, I received my second offer of rep a few days after my first (I was shook, mind you. I couldn’t believe I had one offer, and then I got my second). Agent #2 was also one of the agents who wanted to see the revised version of DOTT, so it felt really good that I somehow improved on the old version enough to snag an offer! We scheduled our call, and I am happy to say this time I did not vomit. Success! I was way, way calmer for this call and actually managed to ask some questions and toss in some jokes. The call went great, and Agent #2 was LOVELY!

I was very lucky that both agents had a great editorial vision I agreed with and that I very much vibed with both of them tremendously. They were extraordinary and amazing! I did my due diligence like speaking to clients and looking over the contract of each agency. If you can, always get second, third, fourths, or however many eyes you need on the contract to feel comfortable. I am lucky that I have some amazing agented friends who helped look over the contracts with me so I was able to fully understand what I could be signing. Of course, if you DO have any questions about the contract don’t hesitate to ask your offering agent. I didn’t, so I didn’t need to, but if you do ASK! If answering your question about your agency contract annoys them, it just gives you a reason to RUN since that would be a huge, flashing red flag.

After my second call, I spent the remainder of my 3-week deadline holding my breath. I had some agents reach out for the full, pass, or update me on where they are at in reading. One thing that was cool to experience was that all of the updates I had (and passes) were lovely. Some came down to running out of time, others were just “not for me.” I was really shocked by the positive reception DOTT received from agents. I think I am still shocked. If you followed me along on Twitter or Instagram (@emmailene_ over there btw!) while I was writing it, you know I wrote it in like 5 minutes and then kicked it into the trenches like a crazed beast. I essentially queried a first draft (which is crazy in hindsight) but I guess in my gut I just felt the story was ready.

I think if I overthought when to query DOTT too much, I would spend months revising something that didn’t need it. (Not to say DOTT doesn’t need edits. It definitely does, and I am currently excitedly waiting for my first edit letter for it as I write this!) But I got DOTT as far as I could on my own. I had the beta feedback, and I had a submission package I felt was strong. So, I sent it! If I didn’t have that hard deadline set for myself on when to query it, I feel like I would have let the manuscript sit in my files for a few months and then stressed about how imperfect it was when I finally came back to it to prep it for the trenches. All this to say follow your gut. I wouldn’t recommend querying a first draft (which makes me a hypocrite since I did) but follow your gut. Test it out with agents and see what the reception is. In my first week, I got several fulls so that told me I was doing something right and gave me confidence to keep querying!

The Final Countdown

My third and final offer came in right at the end of my deadline! I had basically signed off my remaining fulls as “no’s” so this came as a complete shock, but an extremely excited, squealing SHOCK. Agent #3 was one I’ve admired for a long time, so I felt so honored to even be in the position to consider an offer from them. We scheduled our call for the next day, and by now any anxiety I had about offer calls was gone.

Now comes the cliche part. The agent and I clicked. I don’t enjoy Zoom calls. Maybe it’s because I’m traumatized from being a student during the pandemic, but they tend to tire me out because I feel like I need to be on during them. As if someone is grading me to see if I slouch or stop smiling (Can you tell I’m the perfectionist eldest daughter, yet?)

But, as soon as I hopped on the phone with Agent #3, we were cracking jokes, talking about edit ideas, and future wip ideas. The agent really understood the vibes I wanted to achieve for DOTT and the vision I had for it. It was all *chef’s kiss*. I will say it was a big gut feeling with this agent. I can’t really explain it other than I just felt like career-wise we meshed.

I got off the call, my mind fully made up, and texted my friends “I’M SIGNING WITH AGENT #3!!!”

And then I did! I wanted to email Agent #3 and say, “ YES YES YES PLEASEEE PLEASE TAKE ME AS YOUR CLIENT!!” but instead I managed to write a semi-professional email where I (tried to) calmly accept their offer of rep.

And as you all know from my agented announcement on my socials, Agent #3 is the fabulous, amazing, stunning agent Alex Brown at Mad Woman Literary Agency.

I am so, so excited to be in the MWLA family and on Team Alex. Seriously, I am still reeling that I am agented by such a powerhouse. A day after announcing on Twitter, I got sick so my brain has not fully soaked in the fact that in my conscious life where I am not taking gallons of cough medicine, I am now agented. Maybe that reality will catch up with me, but as of now I still am like, “Did that happen, or am I going to wake up and it will be allllll a dream?”

Well, guess what emma, it happened! And it’s been an amazing month. I seriously think I have found my dream team and I am so fortunate for that.

Now I gotta go back to my writing cave as I have an edit letter to get to and hopefully a platter of sushi too!

Query Stats!

Small reminder that Book 1, 2, and 3 are all different versions of DOTT. It’s the only book I’ve ever queried which is insane to me!

Book 1 (2021-2022)

73 queries sent

6 full requests

0 offers of rep

Time in the trenches: 4 months (off and on)

Book 2 (2024)

45 queries sent

19 full requests

2 partials

0 offers of rep

3 R&Rs

Time in the trenches: 2 ½ months!

Book 3 (and the one that got me my agent, 2025)

24 queries sent

13 full requests

3 offers of rep

Time in trenches: 8 days (eeeek!)

Thanks for reading emma wrote what! Feel free to subscribe for more, share this chaotic post, or leave a comment!

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Emma Tweeted WHAT? yeah, emma tweeted that.

So, funny story.

I was given the chance to write a paper on whatever viral piece of content I chose. As a totally normal non-insane person, I thought: I bet no one was writing about that time a Trigun fan account became the biggest buzz in the writing and publishing community. So I did what any totally normal non-insane person would do. I went to my professor and told them the short story about how Bigolas Dickolas became a viral sensation literally overnight. Like most people, my professor’s face was certainly surprised (if not a bit curious) about the whole thing. It’s not every day you come across some online user with a ridiculous (she says lovingly and appreciatively) name like Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood. It definitely raised my professor’s eyebrows, as well as the people who heard what topic I was writing about. As soon as I got the approval for my paper, I instantly tweeted about my topic. Much in the fashion of Wolfwood’s original tweet, it definitely caught some people’s attention!

So, to the people who asked to read my analysis, here it is in all its absurd bigolas glory:

A Big(olas) Impact on Consumerism Through Virality

“Read this,” the viral tweet starts. “DO NOT look up anything about it. just read it… do it right now i’m very extremely serious.” The author, Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood, who mainly uses Twitter to tweet about the 90s anime Trigun, would seem an unlikely candidate to shake up the book publishing world with a single, viral tweet about the sci-fi novel, This is How You Lose the Time War by Almar El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Indeed, Wolfwood was extremely serious. The tweet would amass nearly 15 million views and 130,000 likes in just under 24 hours and would drive sales for the book through the roof. The sensation of Bigolas Dickolas shows that authentic fan content can generate immense interaction causing products to go “viral” which can ultimately change how companies approach their marketing and how consumers spend their money. 

“I do not understand what is happening, but I am incomprehensibly grateful to bigolas dickolas,” El-Mohtar tweeted in response to the hit tweet. A feeling reflected in most followers of this story. Engagement wasn’t the only thing this tweet managed to pull from consumers. Just three days later, Time War climbed the Amazon book charts—outranking celebrity books, the Harry Potter series, and other publishing sensations that reign on the site (Roman). Later that week when the New York Times Bestselling List released, Time War was ranked number nine. The list’s placement is determined by sales, and seeing its list at all was like seeing lightning strike repeatedly into the same bottle (Al-Mohtar). Ranking at all is incredibly unusual for a book that had been published four years prior. If a book is lucky enough to hit one of the most recognized achievements for authors in the United States, the book lists around its release date and then likely falls off. Such was not the case when it came to Wolfwood’s beloved Time War. The tweet, although ridiculous in nature and wording, somehow caught the eyes of not only consumers, but authors, literary agents, publishers, and news outlets like Slate, Business Insider, and Book Riot—all of whom published their own articles on the viral circumstances. The unique aspect of the scenario is that Wolfwood’s tweet was not done by corporate marketing, which is a probable explanation for the cause of its virality

In a newsletter written by one of the authors of Time War, they noted that even top corporate marketers at her publisher, Simon & Schuster aka one of the “Big 5” publishers in the States, have now all learned the name of Bigolas Dickolas because of how the original tweet fired up sales (El-Mohtar). It was a movement that had to be taken seriously when it earned sales by the thousands in just a few days. Especially as more people chimed in with their own support of the story, and even more sales rolled in as a result. An attractive quality of the initial post to those who engaged with it was the light-hearted phrasing of the tweet. Many online users even noted the entertaining nature of an anonymous online user with the screen name of “Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood” starting such an uproar due to the many retweets and replies the tweet garnered in its lifetime. This presumably helped with the amount of reshares the tweet obtained since typically humorous content gets the attention on the site and not advertisements. This is the beauty of this viral tweet: it was not a product of the machine. Marketing planning had little to do with this success, only fans did. 

Fandom is something often overlooked by industry leaders. They are seen as something to sell to, not for. The nature of Wolfwood’s tweet, posted online at 2 AM in early May freshly after Wolfood finished reading Time War, was something that completely ignored that formula. Authentic fan push, shared in a tweet, made consumers feel differently than traditional marketing. Jumping on the trend, genuine curiosity about the product, or even feeling like a friendly—if not unhinged suggestion—on their next read made someone click “buy!” Thus, fandom can also be credited with the success of the tweet. The initial push of engagement that the tweet earned, which would later propel it to the screens of nearly 20 million people to date, was by the anime and book community on Twitter. Their initial support of the Bigolas tweet helped boost it towards the algorithm, which is a key component of any viral piece of media. This causes one to examine the ethical approach of pushing this specific book on the global internet. In this case, Time War was not working on some ulterior agenda. Online users were not inspired to enforce a mode of thinking or opinion on others by promoting this book. Fans just wanted to speak on a book they read and, more importantly, loved. 

A follow-up tweet to Wolfwood’s original “review” where Wolfwood literally grabs consumers by the throat and says, “BUY IT!!!”

After the tweet’s viral few weeks circulating the web, especially in the publishing and anime spheres, people continued to reference it. Even now, the original wording of the tweet is used by fans and creators to promote a piece of media they enjoyed. Those tweets receive hundreds to thousands of likes with the reference to the humor Bigolas Dickolas and Time War brought to these online spaces. Beyond that, Wolfwood didn’t just create a new internet joke for users to play off of but rather made people more conscious of marketing as a whole. 

One can credit some of the tweet’s success to the absurdity of it. It gets straight to the point and then demands you to read it. It wasn’t a publisher or other seller asking this, but a fan. The humor used by Wolfwood and the author’s interactions with others online made this an exciting story to watch unfold, and one can safely imagine how the likeability of the narrative helped sell more copies of Time War. People didn’t want to feel left out of this story that was going viral, they wanted in on the narrative. They got that by picking up a copy and reading it. Consumers weren’t being sold a product, but an experience of being in on the running joke of Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood.

The outbreak stirred up by an anime fan account exceeded Twitter and moved beyond mainstream media into the field of sales in book publishing. It sold more copies than corporate marketing divisions and prestigious book awards ever could. Top publishers seem to have met their match when it comes to selling their books and who can do it more successfully: them or a Trigun fan account. Consumers seem to love it—more eager to buy a product surrounded by a hilarious, viral sensation than one created by traditional marketing.

This paper is the property of Emma Ilene and is not subject to republication without express permission from the author.

Of course, we on book Twitter saw with our own eyes Wolfwood’s impact on publishing as a whole. I still see tweets on my timeline talking about him or even using the wording of the original tweet to promote other books. I won’t forget the time when at a convention Time War was being sold with a literal printed copy of Wolfwood’s tweet. Nor the time Wolfwood himself dressed up as his character with a huge copy of This is How You Lose the Time War strapped to his back.

Until next time,

emma (wrote what?!)

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Wait, Emma Wrote What Now?

Hi! This is Emma and welcome (finally) to my newsletter! I could do a proper introduction where I like say hello (wait I already did that oops) and do the drum roll, but instead, I’ve decided to just crack into it.

Soooo today I’ll be introducing myself and talking about writing! More specifically, the difficulty of carving out that time to write when you’re juggling mental and physical health. This, given the subject of this newsletter, is ironic since finding the time to sit down and write this was a challenge in itself! Without further ado, welcome to a newsletter that hopefully makes you say “emma wrote what?” *ba dum tisss*

First Things First: Meet The Narrator

If you follow me online, you probably only really know me from what I post on twitter. (Which, if you do follow me, hi!! *waves*) Regardless, it is time for a proper introduction.

Hi, I am Emma Ilene. I mainly post about my writing, the books/movies I’m currently binging, or just my daily mundane. But, I’m also a querying YA fantasy writer and bookseller! A new exciting addition to that list is I’m suiting up to enter self-publishing with one of my YA fantasy books, so definitely stay tuned for more updates in that department! I’ll probably talk more about my wips in future newsletters so keep an eye out for that ;)

When I’m not writing, I love watching a good episode of trash reality television and taking my dog, Bella, on walks. When I’m feeling really cool, I’ll light a candle, turn on music, and read.

Phew! Now that that is out of the way, we can crack into what this newsletter is really about:

Next Up: Where’s the time to write?

This is a very gloves off newsletter for me as it’s something I haven’t really talked about yet. But you know what they say, there’s no time like now! 

Writing has always been something I love doing. I looooove tearing into a draft, looooooove just putting my headphones on and losing myself in sentences and commas and just blissful literary insanity. In 2021, I finished the first draft of my manuscript, revised it, revised it some more, then sent it out to agents. It was a busy year and I got a lot done! I was really thriving off just living in my fictional worlds and being all-around productive. I was drafting a steady couple thousand words a day, revising chapters as fast as I could spit them out, and tweaking my query letter non-stop! I even figured out how to write a synopsis (everybody clap, I never want to do it again sob). The final cherry on top was that I was also in the best place I’d been mentally in years. I was truly on the top and felt like I could rattle the universe. Which meant, from a story structure point of view, it was time for my third act breakdown.

Cue the third-act meltdown because things are going too well for our protagonist (me).

Enter the Calm before the storm

By the time my 2021 came to a close, I looked towards 2022 with BIG hopes for the year. For one, I wanted to draft a new wip in 6 months which if you know me I am a bit of a slower drafter. This was ambitious definitely, but boy did I want to do it. January came, I made my outline, pulled out my keyboard, and kind of just got to it. But pretty quickly, the words stopped flowing. I went back to the story, reworked it, and tried again. Annnnnd failed again. Bleh. 

Meanwhile, in my alter ego life, school picked up a bit and, as I had another book out in the querying trenches, the incoming rejections were stinging. (I think a lot of querying writers can agree imposter syndrome is a real killer, and boy was I feeling it). Feeling put out and unable to sort through what this new story NEEDED in order for it to become the story I wanted to tell, I decided to just take a break and refuel.

I do this by basically not touching the draft at all and binging other forms of storytelling. So, I devoured a couple of huge fantasy series, then some romcoms, and in June I came back to the document. This is when the magic happened. No, I wasn’t banging out 2,000, 3,000, or 5,000 words a day like I was used to, but at least I was getting something out, right? One new word every day is better than zero! Even better, my outline started taking shape. Gaps filled themselves in and new ideas for the story started circulating. I spent most of the summer months slowly drafting when I could, and reworking the story in other spare moments. When school resumed, I figured it would be just like 2021 and I would punch out the story in the fall and then edit in the spring. If all went to plan, I’d have a new shiny manuscript by the new year. 

Hahahahahahahaha. 

Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

That did not happen.

Current me looking back at 2022 hopeful me:

No, instead, my fall kind of looked like this?

The Storm, or should I say the house fire?

Yep, you guessed it. My house was on fire, my crops were dead, and my fields were empty!!! Mentally, my health plummeted. Couldn’t stand to think about my wips even though just a few months before I had wanted to draft so badly.  Like, for instance, I started drafting this newsletter in December of 2022. I am releasing it in June 2023 because now is when I finally had the peace of mind to work on it. Overall, It was so, so disheartening for me to feel completely out of sorts with my work. I really felt like I failed myself.

On top of all that, I got a slew of sicknesses which left me pretty much out of commission! Yay! My physical health didn’t get much better. I realized I had been experiencing chronic fatigue as a result of a newly diagnosed chronic illness. With this diagnosis, I realized that the reason I wasn’t writing wasn’t because I was a bad writer (to the shock of my imposter syndrome, of course).

I was a good writer. But my mental and physical health were debilitating me from getting back to my craft. 

Which made me think about how online publishing circles can make people feel. When you see everyone online saying how they punched out 20k in a day or did this somehow-impossible-thing-yet-they’ve-accomplished-it-and-made-it-sound-so-easy, I think it’s hard for us *not* to compare ourselves to it. Which, I know isn’t fair to me. The past six months for me personally have been riddled with anxiety, a crippling class schedule, and bad physical + mental health. This isn’t the case for everyone. Which, duh? But it can still be hard to come to terms with the fact that while others are making progress, you’re not. And what made this obstacle worse for me was, my road blockade wasn’t due to lack of motivation.

I wanted to write so badly, but I just couldn’t. My day revolved around school, nap, eat, sleep, repeat. I was so frustrated. I didn’t want to be dealing with my chronic illnesses, didn’t want to be dealing with my anxiety, didn’t want to be dealing with my depression! I just wanted to write! I wanted to be the 2021 emma who sat down and could write 2-3 chapters in a sitting without getting distracted or tired.

When I shared these frustrations with one of my close writer friends (love ya haley), she pointed me toward the spoon metaphor. I had no idea what she was going on about (I mean what could spoons have to do with writing, right?) Apparently, a lot.

So, go grab some spoons (or don’t I really can’t make you do it) but at least just visualize holding some spoons!

Okay, so let’s say you have 10 spoons in your possession and the person sitting next to you (who we will call Person A) might have 20. Now list all your daily activities. Waking up, getting out of bed, eating, writing, socializing, etc. Each of these costs a spoon to accomplish. If you and Person A do all the same exact activities throughout the day until you reach the end of your list, you will find that you will run out of spoons long before they do. This is because they have more energy, or spoons, to give on their day-to-day than you do. While they can accomplish 20 things with ease, you’re max is 10!

And here’s the kicker that made my jaw drop to the floor: that is okay. 

Some days you will have 10 spoons, some days you will have 50, others you might have just one, lonely spoon that you should definitely use to treat yourself to a slice of cake. But it doesn’t matter because it is okay! It’s fine! If the one thing you take away from my musings in this newsletter please let it be this: it is okay to be out of spoons. 

Call me a sap, but when I first read this metaphor I started to cry. Yep, on the floor. Good little sob. Probably should throw in a *head pat* here too. 

It’s just, I had been going months criticizing my work ethic, asking myself why couldn’t I just write, and really just beating myself up. And even though I knew I was juggling health-related things alongside my writing and school and generally chaotic life, that didn’t silence the voice in my head whispering all the bad in my ear. That is until this metaphor really got it across. I wasn’t a horrible writer who would never finish her draft, I was just a girl without any more spoons to give. 

I started taking care of myself more, sought help, and now writing has slowly come back to me. (Which means I get to work on that book I’ll be querying now! And work on my indie publishing goals I mentioned earlier in this newsletter. yay!) But in times when you feel yourself slowing, lean on your friends. The ones who write and the ones who don’t. Sometimes getting a break from the pub industry can help too! 

So, be kind to yourself. Count your spoons. Remind yourself you got this. Write when you can, but don’t be upset with yourself when you can’t. Mental and physical health are a tricky beast. Try to treat yourself with grace and compassion for me.

Until next time gang,

emma (wrote what?!)

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