How I Found Success With the Writing and Publishing Process

Early on in my writing journey, I heard the advice “write what you know.” Maybe I’m too literal, but I could never apply it to the stories I wanted to write. What I knew was life as a freelance editor, as a mom, as a wife. All good things, but nothing particularly book-worthy. So I didn’t write about any of it.

(Write What You Don't Know.)

I also didn’t get anywhere with my writing. Yes, I improved, and I had encouraging beta readers, but I could count the number of full requests I received from agents over multiple books on one hand. It started to feel like this dream wasn’t going to come true.

While querying one book, I started another: The One and Only Vivian Stone. As a lifelong lover of old Hollywood, particularly movies like Gone with the Wind and the sitcom I Love Lucy, this was a compelling time to explore. I wrote the book in first-person POV, but the feedback I received from beta readers was that they didn’t particularly like my main character. Despite spending a whole book with her, they felt like they didn’t know or understand her. There wasn’t anything making them want to keep reading because they didn’t care about her. Ouch.

They were right, though. I tried to model my main character’s personality after what I’d read about Lucille Ball—she had to work very hard to be funny and wasn’t like that off-screen; she was also, supposedly, prone to anger and pettiness. I struggled to write a character like this, and my readers picked up on it. There was a wall in my mind between me and Vivian, and I didn’t know how to break through.

In the beginning of the book, Vivian is an actress struggling to break into the film industry. Surrounded by a sea of talent, she would have had to be worried that a nobody like her would never be taken seriously, would never stand apart from the rest. How long would it take to get somewhere? Would she ever? How long before she threw in the towel?

And then, it hit me: This was how I felt about writing, with those exact worries and questions. Only I hadn’t been leaning into it because I’d been too focused on creating a particular kind of character, one I didn’t truly understand. I needed to tear down the wall between us and rebuild the character was from the ground up—using my own emotions. I needed to become vulnerable for the sake of the character.

Is this obvious? In hindsight, it feels like it. But I’d written three books—four if you count this one before my rewrite—without ever really connecting on a deep, emotional level with my characters. Once I shifted my mindset, the writing became cathartic and so much fun.

“Write what you know?” I finally did.

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The responses from readers were completely different from what they’d been the first time. Vivian had become someone readers rooted for, someone they related to.

I tried to be more strategic about querying this story than I’d been with my previous books. First, I scoured every resource I could find about writing query letters, then I wrote and rewrote mine. I sought feedback and kept fine-tuning. Queries were always a mystery to me. I understood what they required, but I couldn’t figure out how to write a compelling hook and show the character's wants while also picking out the most important plot strands. But after about a hundred attempts (not an exaggeration), I had a letter I felt confident about.

I also looked for opportunities everywhere: I submitted my query and first pages to The Shit No One Tells You About Writing podcast, which ended up getting chosen, giving me valuable feedback. I submitted to a mentorship program called RevPit. All of the mentors rejected me, but I received a lot of encouraging messages. I also posted on Twitter/X for #moodpitch, which isn’t around anymore but involved posting a mood board and an elevator pitch. I’d done these kinds of contests for previous books, without any success, but this time I received interest from about a dozen agents. These were all great, low-stakes ways to test the waters.

If there had been more opportunities, I would have tried them too. Yes, a lot of people apply, and yes, it’s easy to get lost in it all. But there is also the chance that it can go very well. I had already put so much effort into the book, so why stop there?

Finally, I started querying, confident that I’d done all I could do but still worried because an agent liking a pitch is not the same as them liking the whole book. And while I received plenty of rejections, I also received several offers.

As I’m drafting my next project, I wonder if it ever gets easier to “write what you know.” I hope so. There continues to be the question of which parts of myself to bring to the character and a resistance to the reflection needed to figure it out. What I do know is it’s essential, even if it can feel vulnerable.

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