Unearned Confidence

Ever heard of querying? It's hard on the soul but I was literally built for this shit.

I am full of unearned confidence. The minute I see someone do something or hear of another person’s triumph, my initial response is always to believe, deep down in my soul, that I can do it too. I was born with a level of confidence that should be outlawed. Criminal levels of the good ‘ol can-do attitude. If you want to get witchy with it, it’s basically a belief that I can manifest my own destiny. It’s definitely my super power and I wouldn’t be sitting here in this beautiful life without it. I’ll tell you some stories but first, what the fuck is querying?

You have to have a pretty high level of hubris to write a book. I mean, think about it. You’re going to sit down at a computer, tell a compelling story for 80,000-100,000 words, and expect people to love it. It’s a bit delusional, really. And thus, a perfect hobby for me to take up.

High amount of ego? check

Self-aggrandizing behavior? check

Delusions about one’s own talent? check check check

In other words, I found my calling. But it’s the stuff that’s come after writing the book that was I really built for. My novel, THE O, clocks in at 88,888 words. It took me about 6 months to write and another 9 months to edit. Countless revisions, beta readers, and feedback from people who actually know what they’re doing. In late September, 2024, I put down the pen and deemed it ready for the world.

What happens next is called querying. It’s the process of getting a literary agent. Through research, you find agents that are looking for books in your genre and style. You then send those agents a “query letter” which is an email or online form containing a 350-400 word description of your book, other books that are similar to your book, and an author bio. It’s extremely hard to write a good query letter. Brevity has never been my strong suit.

Now, here is the first gate in a series of gatekeeping exercises. Agents report getting thousands of queries and only having time to respond positively to about 3% of the query letters they receive. If you’re lucky enough to get that favorable response, the agent will ask for your full manuscript. They read the full and either love it and offer you representation or they’ve just given you a sliver of hope in an arduous process only to slam you back down to earth and pass on it.

Here is the second gate. If the agent loves the book and offers you representation (through a contract that you should read and hire a lawyer to read for you and no, I’m not your lawyer and this is not legal advice and remember that lawyers are the worst and yes, I’m a lawyer), they have to go and pitch it to an editor. I don’t know what this process is like but it sounds like dating.

“You’re so pretty (I like your editing style), can we go on a date (read this book) and if you like it, we can be life partners (work with me to polish it up) at least for a little while (until the book is published)? Please?”

Again, getting an agent isn’t a guarantee that you’ll get an editor and if you don’t get an editor, the process stops there. Do not pass go. Do not collect whatever you agreed to receive in the contract that you most certainly had a lawyer review for you.

When I describe this process to people who aren’t in the book world, its about right here that they ask why I don’t just self-publish the book. Because Becky, that would be giving up! Seriously though. I could just get it printed and put it on Amazon. Plenty of people do this and there isn’t anything wrong with it, but there is a weird consequence to self-publishing your book. if you self-publish, you’ll never be traditionally published in the future (by “never” I mean it’s extremely unlikely). The publishing world looks down their nose at self-published authors and if you’ve self-published, you have to disclose that to agents. It’s an option, but it’s a last resort. One I may find myself at here in the future, so no judgment.

Which brings us to the third gate. If you get an agent and if that agent hooks up with an editor, the editor needs to pitch the book to the publisher and get them to agree to print, market, and circulate the book. It’s been described to me like this: you took up golfing and think you can make the PGA. Yeah. Good luck with that. So you’re telling me there’s a chance!

But here is where it gets good for me. Where the odds are in my favor. You see, some of you might read that and think it’s never going to happen. That it’s a lost cause. That I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Remember that unearned confidence? Long odds have never bothered me. It’ll just make it all the more sweeter when it happens.

My high school cheer team had 6 girls on it and no boys. We didn’t compete. We didn’t tumble. We hardly did any sort of stunting. So naturally, I was determined to cheer in college. When I applied to Gonzaga, I did so knowing that I would be trying out for the Gonzaga cheer squad. It was kinda of the whole point of going there.

And people thought I was crazy. I had so many people tell me not to get my hopes up. That it was okay if I didn’t make it. They were setting me up to take the emotional blow of rejection. But instead of hedging my bets, I doubled down. The summer before tryouts I learned how to throw a back-handspring, I worked out obsessively, and I visualized making the squad over and over and over again. I also began a 5 year journey into the wonderfully ruinous world of eating disorders but we’ll put that aside for now. The moral of the story is that I did everything I could to make that team, including destroying my metabolism. No stone unturned. No excuses.

2007

When I made the squad, when my dream came true, I realized something about myself: if I throw my weight behind something I want to achieve, I can’t lose. But the trick is that is has to be my whole entire weight. If I leave myself a way out, I’ll take it. And that’s scary. It’s scary to give something everything you’ve got because if you do fail (and it’s sort of inevitable but don’t tell me that), there is no excuse. You just weren’t good enough. It’s natural to give something 90% of your effort so that when you don’t reach the goal, you can protect your ego by saying something to the effect of, “well I didn’t really try that hard and if I had, I could have made it.”

It was the same with CrossFit. When I discovered CrossFit, I didn’t just want to workout, I wanted to compete. I wanted to learn and master every single skill. Handstand walks, legless rope climbs, muscle-ups, handstand pushups, snatch, clean & jerk. All of it. It took years and more than a few injuries, but eventually I would travel to Indiana and compete at the Masters Fitness Collective, the second largest masters competition in the sport. I had one top 5 finish and another top 10 finish. Overall I was second to last but I got there. No excuses, no exit.

Masters Fitness Collective 2021

Another good example is how I got my first law job. When I graduated law school in 2010, the worst economy for new-hires since the great depression. Even the top 10% of my law school class were having a hell of a time finding a job. Instead of resigning myself to the fact that I’d have to compromise the dream of working in a firm as an estate planning attorney, I hit the pavement. I was living in Seattle at the time, getting my LLM (a masters degree) in tax law from UW.

One of my professors helped me connect with other Gonzaga and UW grads across the Puget Sound. Every single week for 6 months, I did two things: (1) a networking coffee with an attorney in my field, and (2) a networking event within the legal field. Every. Single. Week. I had a spreadsheet. I took notes. I followed up with thank-yous. I sent hand written cards. And this was all in between my job at the low-income taxpayers clinic and getting my tax masters degree. I was determined to get a job. And sure enough, I had two job offers coming out of school. Against all odds, I was an associate attorney at a prestigious firm, practicing in estate planning and corporate law.

So, to bring us back to our original topic, I’m delusional. I’m going to push forward with the querying process full of unearned confidence and delusions of grandeur. The goal isn’t to write the book. The goal is to get traditionally published. I’m not going to sit here and pretend it’s not scary to put it all out there and leave everything I have on the floor. It is. It’s even scarier to tell ya’ll because now, if I do fail, you’ll know that it wasn’t for a lack of effort. It was for a lack of talent.

But let’s be honest. That won’t happen because I’m awesome. Nothing can stop me. Not even the weird world of publishing. And when it happens, my lord, this is your warning. I will be insufferable. You think I’m an egomaniac now?! Just wait until I see my name in print! pppffffff. My head might explode.

And then I’ll pretend it was easy. Elle Woods style. What, like it’s hard?

Remember, stay difficult and always question authority.