If Avenue

If Avenue is the road all novelists must travel, and love traveling. It's the never-ending fantasy we indulge as we sweat over, cry over, cuss over, laugh over, write over, skip meals over, stuff our faces over, lose sleep over, wrack our brains over, accidentally delete over, and gush with pride over our precious novel. It's a long road for most of us. Years long.

Lonely too.

No amount of support from loved ones can accompany you on this road. Trust me. I'm walking If Ave alone despite a wife who will hustle the kids to another room if I'm "on a roll". Support makes it easier to step onto If Avenue and stay on If Avenue, but you travel alone.

If Avenue is our own creation and the pavement takes on different meanings as we walk, or trip, or sprint, or crawl, or puke on it.

"If I could just get meaningful face time with an agent..."

"If I could just see what was missing from this section..."

"If I could just figure out the secret of a good query..."

"If only the slush pile weren't filled with other people's CRAP..."

"If only there were a few more competent agents to query..."

Despite the desolate and lonely trek of If Avenue, with no destination in sight (only in our hopes), we push on. We writers are gluttons for disappointment. We writers are a resilient bunch. We know our chances for publication are slim and every rejection does not lead us closer the next one (no matter the rosy spin of well-meaning agents), but we push on.

So come, fellow writers! Join me on If Avenue. Ignore the corpses of those who have failed before us and litter the road with snarky disdain. Turn an encouraging word to those who are swiftly dying around us. Watch those who speed past us and take note.

Together we march. May none of us fall silently.