How I (Felt When I) Signed With My Agent

A lot of writers seem to blog about how they got their agents. When I was still querying, I found these stories helpful. Yay, debut authors were still signing with agents! New books 4EVA!

(They were also a little disheartening, ’cause, y’know, knowing a bunch of other people did make the soccer team doesn’t make you feel any better about not being able to play yet. But it’s nice to know that people can and do join the roster all the time.)

Most stories talked about how excited the author was to get The Call — the phone call in which the agent offered them representation.

Most how-to guides for taking The Call remind the reader that it’s OK to be super excited at first, but you have to settle down and think business, too.

I was super excited. I did feel the joy of taking a major new step in the journey I’ve been making all my life. Before I picked up the phone, I had the most intense bout of stage fright I’ve had in years (and that’s saying a lot, considering half my job is speaking in front of strangers forced to listen against their will very early in the morning). Afterward, I was walking on sunshine.

Well, immediately afterward.

See, the thing about mental health is that it doesn’t care about how awesome the agent who just offered you representation is (pretty awesome) or how thrilled you are about working on your MS (damn thrilled) and how super-duper excited you are to have someone else just as excited about working on it.

Just one hour later, when my close family and friends were still super excited, I felt… meh.

I knew objectively that I was still happy. I knew my soon-to-be agent was awesome, and that we’d had a great talk, and I knew I was still stoked about working on my manuscript. But all those feelings were kind of… happening behind glass.

Even though I knew it was silly, I felt my mind turning away from happy things (I’m gonna have an agent! This MS is gonna be great, and I’m not the only one who thinks so!) and toward sad ones (I wish my dead relatives who used to encourage me were here so I could tell them about this).

It was tough to deal with the excitement of others. I felt like people who congratulated me were asking for something — joy, enthusiasm — that I couldn’t produce. My emotional energy banks were empty, and I didn’t have any to give away.

But when others played it low-key, I found myself feeling like they didn’t think my writing or this big step was important. Did they not think writing was something worth getting excited about? Did they not think I was worth it?

February is my bad month, what with the less sunlight and cold weather and so many people I care about feeling the effects of the same. As soon as the sun goes down, it’s harder to be my regular self. I knew that because “The Call” took place in February in the late afternoon, the approaching twilight had more to do with how I felt than anything that had actually happened. I knew all this negativity was my brain chemicals playing tricks on me.

But it made me feel like a failure — wouldn’t a real writer be so pumped she rode that adrenaline wave for the whole week? Wouldn’t she be bouncing on her toes all day like in so many of the personal accounts I’d read?

Don’t worry: I do have help, both medical and social. And I’m lucky enough that when I get depressed, it’s pretty mild and contained. I was on the edge of not-okay, but never over the cliff, and I’m okay now. I can only marvel at the fortitude of those in my life and in the world who live with these and other mental health issues.

In fact, I feel a little silly taking up your time with this description of how I felt. Because it seems like that’s not the important part. Agent! Manuscript! Writing! Yeah! It even feels a little like I’m whining about these good things that are happening for me in my desired career.

I hope it doesn’t feel like whining to you. Because when I realized I could take my “turn” to write the “yay! Here’s how it feels when you get The Call!” blog, I just… wanted to be honest about my reality. And, more importantly, to make sure that other writers (and not-writer people!) who might have similar health issues don’t feel like weirdos or failures or impostors if ninety minutes after the (so far) best development in their careers, they struggle to feel “meh.”

Whatever your mental health state, you can still be a real writer. If you write when you can, then you are still a real writer. It might mean you wind up writing blog entries like this one instead of more cheerful and fun announcements of good news. It might mean that sometimes, you feel like a fraud. It might mean that you feel guilty about admitting to feelings like this, like it somehow reflects on the people who support your work and/or work with you, like you’re not satisfied with them or yourself.

But those things have nothing to do with the validity of your experience and your writing. If you write, you’re a writer. A real writer. And you can feel however you damn well feel about that.

Luckily for me, today and in the months since last winter, I am feeling all the positive feelings. I’m excited to be represented by the insightful and amazing Bridget Smith of Dunham Literary. I’m bouncing in my seat to keep working on the stuff I’ve discussed with her. Today, I am a happy writer. Some days, I can’t be. But either way, I’m a writer.