Knowing less, wanting more
In my absence
Dear Reader,
How are you going?
I know I’ve been missing for a couple of weeks. See, what had happened was…well, I got busy and I stopped prioritising this. I’m not proud of it; of dropping the thing I began when work was scarce and writing into the ether was the only thing that kept me going. It is funny how that happens sometimes - like going through a hard time and entering therapy. And just when you start to feel better you think, ‘I don’t need this therapy anymore, I feel great!’ and so you leave and for a couple of blissful weeks perhaps you convince yourself that you always felt this good. And then something knocks you back down into the darkness and you realise it was therapy that you needed and continue to need, all along.
I know you’ve missed my long, meandering metaphors.
But I think you get me, yeah? That’s what this newsletter was. Not just a stopgap in between creative projects whilst I recovered from burnout and tried to survive in this hellscape of the UK; but also a creative outlet, a place to stretch my figurative legs and literal fingers, to work out some literary/ rambling thoughts.
So, I’m sorry I forgot about you there for a moment; that’s my bad.
Now onto the things I’ve been musing over these last few weeks: yes busyness and the many workshops and courses I’m running over the coming months, but there are other things behind that too. Of course.
I’ve mentioned before that my latest manuscript is out on submission - into the publishing ether for those interested, hoping to find a good home and become my second published novel.
The waiting for this is it’s own kind of torture to be honest. But it’s also ironically made me feel brand new to the industry again, as if I haven’t spent the last four years embroiled in publishing - both children's and adults due to my work outside of being a writer, and all the authors and illustrators I know now. And the thing is, I know the pitfalls, I know what to look out for, who to speak to about what, how certain processes work, from editor to acquisitions, and I know intimately the struggles that come with being a debut and trying to get your story heard above all the noise.
Or, I thought I knew all that.
It’s fascinating how quickly a knowledge base that used to bring you reassurance, can falter under the weight of emotional anxiety when you’ve put your own work out into the world again. And everything you read, everything you view on socials, is telling you how difficult it is to get published as a Black or brown person; how the odds are still stacked against you, how statistically Black authors remain unagented for many years into their careers, no matter the number of books they publish - which is to say, there are fewer advocates for us. Fewer people fighting for us. Fewer people making the decisions in favour of us. Fewer people wanting to hear our stories - despite the fact that we make up such a huge part of the book-buying industry.
This has been the story for decades and the change from it is painstakingly slow - almost as if we’re going backwards.
I’ve been wrestling with all the no’s that could come, have come and might not come for my own work, because of all these other things - statistical, race-as-a-social-construct things - that I have zero control over. Because I have done my part; I have written something I am proud of, that I have given three years of my life to, that I think other people will want to read. Yet still, it feels like it’s not enough. Like somehow, I am being told I am not enough.
And don’t get it twisted - I know that I am enough, more than even. I have an everlasting belief in my ability. But belief in everything else around that, in industries that want to uphold the status quo by remaining the same and seeing anything else outside of that as a ‘risk’? Yeah, I’m not sure I believe in that, if I’m honest.
Who could?
MB x