What They Don’t Tell You About Submitting a Manuscript

In the movies, authors are often portrayed as lovable introverts who after finishing their manuscript, pour a glass of wine and kick their legs up on the desk. The hard work is done, they are pleased with their accomplishment, and now it’s time to celebrate. In reality, publishing a manuscript and getting it into the hands of readers is a long and arduous process. Few authors celebrate like this and instead, often find themselves frightened, sad, and elated, all at once. 

When one hurdle is cleared, there are more hurdles following, waiting to be jumped. Publishing is a long and bumpy ride, and not for the faint of heart. Once you send your manuscript into the world, it’s time to buckle up and get ready for all that comes next.

While writers may expect the logistical obstacles and challenges inherent in producing a book, they may not anticipate all the emotions that accompany the ‘let go’ of releasing their manuscript.

When I submitted my manuscript this week, I didn’t pour myself a glass of wine or kick my feet up on my desk. Instead, I cried, laughed, danced, and wept some more. Why the emotional purge, you ask? Because sending your manuscript into the world is emotional. Spending months, a year, or years creating something is monumental, and it seems reasonable all that time and energy is bundled up in the emotional aftermath.

Writers might experience “empty nest” symptoms, such as sadness and loss, when they are no longer spending time with those colorful characters every day. As a writer, letting go of the internal story world, your muses, and your comfortable bubble from reality can be a difficult mental shift.

If you’re writing a thriller, you might welcome a break from exploring the mind of a murderer, but you might miss your hero and those feelings of elation when the good guys win. Or if you write romance like I do, you may miss those feelings of falling in love. If you write about setting, you may have spent the past year in a cozy mountain town in your mind and now you are dealing with the reality of living in a noisy, urban reality.

Scientific research has shown through fMRIs (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) that writers’ brains experience the emotions, thoughts, feelings, and sensations of the characters they create, and therefore, to some degree, are experiencing their story as if they are living it themselves. So, when a manuscript is sent off and the project “ends,” there is a sense of loss tied to those experiences. Imagine saying farewell to your soulmate – it’s not exactly a celebratory occasion.

Regardless of how you feel about your work, your manuscript is your baby and your creation. Submitting my manuscript reminds me of the first day I sent my son to preschool, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I remember walking the grocery store aimlessly, going home and unpacking my bags, and feeling empty. I was no longer a full-time mom; I was someone in between.

For so long, I had been my son’s everything and he, mine. Letting him go into the world, I worried whether he would be treated with kindness. I worried if he would miss me and who would comfort him if he did. I worried about what my next stage in life would look like. What had I become, and what would I do now?

Submitting a manuscript kind of feels like that. You send your baby, your creation off into the world, you want it to be accepted and treated kindly, you feel separated from your project, and you aren’t exactly sure where to direct your energy next. In your mind, your project is pretty damn wonderful and has lots of potential. No one wants to hear from the metaphorical pres-school teacher that their kid isn’t all that great, that he still needs a lot of work, or that they don’t want to teach your kid.

If you do get that feedback, I hope you don’t give up and homeschool your baby. No. You keep going until you find the right teacher, for your kid -or- the right agent for your manuscript.

However, if you continue receiving the same feedback, it’s time for a book coach, beta readers, or a professional editor to look at your work. Just as you would enlist a therapist for your kid if every teacher claimed he was a problem child, you would hire an expert to advise you on your next steps to repair a consistently rejected manuscript. You keep on keeping on, because you love and believe in your project, and you want the best for your creation.

Exhausted yet? As they say in the kitchen industry, suck it up buttercup because submitting your manuscript is just the beginning. Remember when your book coach, or mentor, told you that you must love your project, and not to write anything you aren’t passionate about because you will be married to it, for better or worse, for several years or in the best-case scenario, in perpetuity. They were right. It’s kind of like self-love. If you don’t love your project, you can’t expect anyone else to love it either.

Submitting your manuscript is a great practice in letting go and allowing life to play out. You will likely vacillate between feeling grossly overconfident (because who could write a book if they didn’t have a little bit of this in them) to grossly insecure. One day, you will be thinking, agents are going to love this, and they will help nurture my manuscript into a best-selling book. Other days you will beat yourself up, questioning your worth, your abilities, and your gumption.

Ahh, the emotional roller coaster of trying something so few succeed at. Remember, no matter what happens, you will never regret trying. You are deserving of success, and though you might fail along the way, that’s okay. It’s all part of the journey. Investing in your dreams and investing in yourself is never a waste of time - no matter the outcome.

The day after I submitted my materials, I went roller skating with my 9-year-old daughter to celebrate, and in the end, found roller skating to be the perfect metaphor for the writing experience.

The skating rink is a lot like life, you can either sit on the sidelines and never skate because you’re too afraid to get hurt (not submitting your manuscript because of the fear of rejection) or you can take a chance and skate, knowing that you might get hurt but you also might have lots of fun (sending out your manuscript).

And guess what? There are all kinds of skaters (writers) along the way. You have your novice skaters that are holding onto the wall and inching their way forward, some of them crying, and some of them laughing. On the other end of that spectrum, you have the advanced skaters, who zig zag all over the place and make skating look easy. Then you have the people in the middle, people kind of like me, who may not have the best style or look the most assured, but they make it around the rink, rarely fall, and generally enjoy themselves.

Most importantly of all, is to get out there and skate (submit your manuscript) and try to have some fun while you’re doing it because I guarantee, though the sideliners are staying nice and safe, they are also missing out on all the fun, and nothing is worth that.

Skating brought out my childlike joy and it reminded me that no matter what happens, no matter what feelings I might experience along the publishing path, that life keeps rolling on and if I want to smile and have fun, I need to roll along with it. When you finally hit that send button, just keep this in mind. Life may look a little bumpy for a while but continue skating and rolling along, and you’re going to be just fine.