Is the Party Over?

“I’m always late to the party,” I told a writing colleague the other day. Sometimes it’s physically late to be at the place I promised to be. More often it’s not quite so literal: late catching on to a new trend, mastering a new skill or learning about a development in the writing industry.

Once I was early.

We all have a book (or two…or three) in the proverbial drawer gathering dust. Some are what I like to consider practice books. Yes, they’re bad but that’s OK. They showed us what we were doing wrong and give us the knowledge to do better next time. But some get stuck there for reasons that have nothing to do with our writing.

Years ago I attended my first writing conference, armed with my elevator speech and appointments with agents. One agent seemed like my dream agent. I was beyond excited. It’s a miracle my head didn’t just detach from my body and float away. Then came the moment of truth when I pitched my historical novel.

“It’s an interesting idea but can you switch it from World War II to World War I? World War II doesn’t quite qualify as historical fiction so I’d have trouble placing it. I would be interested in seeing it in World War I.”

I smiled. I nodded. Inside I was screaming, “But the premise this book is based on didn’t happen in World War I. I can’t just change 1942 to 1918 and call it good.”

So even though I continued to polish my novel it seemed futile. She was the agent. She knew the industry better than me. Her words kept echoing in my head. I shoved my novel and reams of research in the drawer and moved on to other things.

Unless you’ve been living in the drawer with my abandoned novel you know that World War II historical fiction is everywhere and has been for over a decade. There are authors that specialize in ONLY World War II historical fiction. I toy with the idea of taking out my old novel – focusing on an event I haven’t seen in a novel yet – and polishing it up. But I see agent calls begging for historical fiction NOT from World War II since so much has come across their desks. Can you be too late to the party?

Have you ever been at odds with what the writing industry told you? How do you balance advice from the experts with your belief in your writing project?

Hope everyone's enjoying a fun day full of picnics and fireworks! Stay safe.