Jerusha Bosarge

A watched pot never boils? Well, maybe it will eventually, if it is a real pot on a real stove. But, please endure my blatant use of a bad cliché’ for the sake of the writing craft. For eight years, I have been writing for publication. Within this timeframe, I finally learned a harsh truth about the pot of publication. The more focused you are on the pot, the longer it takes to boil.

In my experience, the reason for this was only obvious in hindsight. In the beginning of my career, I was so focused on the prize of publication, that I lost sight of the reason I decided to write in the first place. I forgot to love the craft.

Sure, I still wrote the manuscripts. But, I was writing them in the voice that I thought my target publisher wanted to hear. I still attended the conferences. But, the workshops I chose were the ones with the “good” editor or agent, regardless of the subjects taught. I was so sure that all I needed for my publishing dreams to come true was to make that one golden connection. As absurd as it seems , it never even occurred to me at the time that my work was, at best, mediocre and, at worst, rough.

Keeping my eye so intently focused on the prize somehow snuffed-out my ability to improve my writing. I was, in essence, completely blinded by my desire for the end result. Had I continued along this path of denial, it would have robbed me of my ultimate goal, a successful writing career.

Fortunately, somewhere along the way I reluctantly considered the possibility that the swollen pile of rejection letters in my drawer was growing for a reason other than my lack of industry connections. Now, I don’t know how other writers think, but for me, the idea that I couldn’t get my writing published due to a lack of skill was a tough bone to swallow.

Swallow it I did, however, leading me to exchange some of my ambition to publish for a much humbler effort to improve my craft. I began to pen manuscripts and to attend conferences with a new focus.

When writing, I no longer thought of the publisher at all. Instead, I simply wrote about what interested me, in the style that I was most comfortable with. As a result, my writing began to develop a “voice” of its own; a term I had never truly understood until that point.

When attending conferences, I signed up for workshops with subjects that I needed to learn, instead of the ones with a speaker that I wanted to “brown nose”. In question-and-answer sessions, I asked questions about the writing craft, instead of about the path to quick publication. In doing so, I ended up meeting the folks I would normally have “brown-nosed,” but in a less vulture-like setting, making some of the best connections I have ever had … also known as “friends.”

Then, guess what? I began to earn publication credits. At first, the credits were very small and/​or unpaid. But, slowly, the credits became more reputable, eventually leading to the publication of my first book, Inventing Ott: The Legacy of Arthur C. Guyton. And, thanks to insight (and friends) gained from the last two Mississippi Writers Guild Events, I now have one manuscript represented by a major literary agent, and I am rewriting another for the editor of a major publisher!

Bragging? Well, maybe a little. But my point is this: it was not until I took my eye off the pot of publication that it began to boil with any vigour to speak of. I do not pretend to be nearly as established in my writing career as I plan to be. But, I will no longer rush the process. For now I am content to pay my dues.