I’m trying to remember the last time I tried submitting one of my novels to a publisher or an agent, and I’m thinking it may have been at least five or six years go, when I’d just finished the final edits of A Division of Souls. I’d submitted it and other projects off and on over the years before that, with no success.
That part was frustrating, sure, but I won’t hold it against the publishers and agents. I get why it’s so hard to get past the slush pile. I got over it, and it helped me take the idea of self-publishing a hell of a lot more seriously. It also made me a better writer in the process.
During our vacation a few weeks back, I reread what I have so far of the Apartment Complex story, and I was struck at how different the style is from most of my other novels. It’s not as frantic as the Bridgetown Trilogy, or free-floating as Meet the Lidwells, or as fantastical as In My Blue World. It feels like a style I could really sink my teeth into with future novels. At the risk of tooting my own horn, I think this is some of my best stuff yet. [Even after threatening to ragequit the project in frustration earlier this year, at that!]
Dare I say, I’m rather proud of it right now.
It got me thinking — maybe this one has a good chance of being picked up somewhere? I mean, yeah, I have a wish list of publishing houses and agencies where this would fit in quite nicely, and that’s a good place to start.
So why now, and not with the other novels? I think part of it is due to the fact that my previous work does feel rather indie. I’d like to think they’re decently written, but they purposely don’t have that Manhattan Literary Sheen™ to them. [I’m not saying that as a put-down. I say this as a parallel to, say, the loose noise of early-era Dinosaur Jr or Sonic Youth on indie labels versus their much cleaner late-period major label releases. I produced my self-published novels to be indie on purpose rather than to attempt to conform to something more commercial.]
Simply put, the Apartment Complex story, I feel, is a story that deserves a strong platform. I’d rather not see it fall through the cracks due to my inability to get it seen by potential readers. It’s a story that I truly would like to share with a lot of people.
That said…I’ll have to start doing my submission search soon, because it’s been ages since I’ve looked at a Writer’s Market to see who’s out there nowadays and who’s accepting and who isn’t, and what format they prefer.
But that part’s easy. It’s getting the thing done and all cleaned up that’s the hard part!
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