The Pros & Cons of Jumping in with Both Feet

I am utterly awful at the idea of “pitching” a concept. For starters, if one doesn’t have an agent, there’s almost no point in putting together a PITCH for a novel, comic, cartoon, or whatever. Without an agent (which I’d LOVE to have, lol), most doors are well and truly closed.

But that’s not really why I’m awful at it. I’m awful at it because once I’ve HAD an idea that I have enough passion to WANT to explore at all… I explore it. I don’t stop, write up a proposal, and make some sample pages or concept art, send it off, and then put the idea out of my mind.

Pictured: Happiness.

Hell, I don’t know if I CAN do that. I almost always just go and make the THING. I get fully invested in the characters and their world and run blindly into the proverbial breach at full warp.

When I had the idea for my werewolf novel, “Lycanthropy and the Single Girl”, (the SOLID idea and not just the initial brain fart of “what if a woman was a werewolf but ALSO just trying to date like a normal person?”), I started writing.

Yes, I looked into literary agents and researched the whole process of what it would take to get published, but while I was doing that, I was writing. And I was writing FAST! I wrote the first draft of that first novel in 3 months. It may have taken a few YEARS for it to finally see print, but I was a beast back then.

It helped that the story seed took root, and the actual story occurred to me early in the COVID lockdown, but I digress.

So, I wrote. And once I was DONE, my focus SHOULD have turned to finding an agent. So I looked at that process and winced. I was looking at potential YEARS of just fishing for representation, and years MORE of then hoping said agent could find a publisher who wanted what I’d written.

Then, I read the horror stories. The tales from every author who has complained about the seemingly random changes based on the whims of the market. An editor’s personal taste. The color of the wind that day. And while I was reading up on everything I’d need to do, I was also still… well… writing.

Within a couple of weeks of finishing my first round of edits on book ONE, I started book TWO. The core idea of “Wolves of the Havenlands” occurred to me quickly after finishing “Lycanthropy,” and I leaped into it again. HARD. The book ended up being twice as long and took about five months to write, but I had the bug. I was HOOKED on the process. Hooked on creating this world and living with these characters.

By the time I had started writing book THREE, I had given up on the idea of finding an agent. I allowed the few feelers and pitches I had put out there to die on the vine, which turned out to be easy since it’s about as hard to find an agent unsolicited as it is a publisher. Whee.

And this isn’t exclusive to my werewolf novels. For most of my career as a cartoonist, I’ve done the same. When I wanted to make my first webcomic, “Dandy & Company”, I sent out a package of strips and a pitch to the syndicates, collected my rejection letters, and went straight to the internet.

This is a healthy work/life balance, right?

The same with “The Wellkeeper”. I put together a package with sample pages, a plot summary, etc., and sent it out. I collected my rejection letters, etc. But when I had sent out that package, I had also just kept drawing. I was well into issue #2 by the time I was told that nobody had any interest in publishing issue #1.

So, I self-published. And I self-distributed. I sold it at cons and local shops, and online, and, well, like ALL of these projects, the sales never got significant enough to support me as a business. But that’s never stopped me.

Now, like I said a few times here, I DID make an effort every time to get in through the front door, but I didn’t allow my interest in pursuing these projects to be dependent on the decisions of others.

I REALLY do NOT like waiting for permission to explore an idea. I REALLY don’t like the idea of someone having the authority to tell me that I can’t explore a plot idea in a comic, cartoon, or novel I’ve written. I HAVE a day job where I have to do what I’m told. Where my creativity is at the mercy of the whims of others. I have NEVER wanted that for my creative projects.

I do NOT wait for rejection letters.

In hindsight, I always wonder what would have happened if I HAD taken those other roads. I lie awake at night beating myself up, imagining the reality where I just kept TRYING with one of these other projects. Tweaking it and morphing it until SOMEONE said “yes”. Maybe I wouldn’t be struggling financially every day. Maybe I’d have a strip in the papers, or comics on the racks of every local shop, or novels in bookstores everywhere. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

I am often buried under the weight of all the “what ifs” in my past. But that never changes my process in the beginning. When I get that new idea I want to explore, I jump in with both feet. I don’t bother with the pitch package, I just do the entire thing and cross my fingers that it will find an audience.

And there are REASONS that I keep doing things this way. On the list of pros and cons, the number one PRO that has kept me on this path is joy. When I’m creating and telling my OWN stories MY way… it is when I am the happiest in life. When I was writing my novels without worrying about potential sales or the approval of anyone else, it was the closest I’ve felt to being a kid and creating just to create. When I am high off that rush of exploring a fun new idea, it’s the only time I think I am ever truly happy. And that kind of rush is hard to argue away with logical arguments in favor of taking one’s time and going through the proverbial system.

But, again, HAD I tried HARDER to make a pitch and then put that PITCH out there while waiting to move forward, maybe I wouldn’t be looking at the calendar wondering what we’re gonna eat between now and payday. It’s a hard balance, and I have no sense of balance.

Arguably, this is the definition of insanity, but it’s also allowed me to create a body of work that may not SELL well, but makes me happy to create. Sometimes that bugs me, but sometimes it’s also enough. :)