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I didn't get a book deal. The editor communicated in a sort of roundabout, partly-coded way about what she was looking for and how she wanted me to answer her questions in order for me to sell myself to her, but I was instead completely earnest and honest, and, in retrospect, I probably, comedically, confounded her by saying all the wrong things very confidently. But ultimately I feel good about it and I thought she was very nice and enthusiastic. My takeaway was that she's looking for a debut male novelist that will write something with a mix of [redacted] but also a plot with some level of [redacted] to try to appeal to the young male audience, and she was hoping I would pitch her something like that. But, for example, during the "Do you want to have a career writing novels" question, I mostly talked about how I didn't have any good ideas for a novel and how I feel unsure I could possibly ever write a novel, actually, that I feel most novels' plots are frustratingly contrived and artificial, and that I've never seen myself as someone having a long fruitful career writing novels. When she prodded me for hypothetical comp titles, if I were to write one, like novels I admired that didn't conform necessarily to the artifice of plot and narrative structure, I found myself talking about Franz Kafka's unfinished novel Amerika and obscure Norwegian authors who have killed themselves (I semi-earnestly said "All good novelists kill themselves" at some point and she buried her face in her hands). Later she said [redacted] despite [redacted], and I laughed, but was unsure what that meant. I did tell her that I thought I could probably sometime figure out a way to make a novel I'd feel good about, but I hadn't figured it out yet. Although my sense now is that even if I did that, it wouldn't make sense for [redacted] to publish it, because of what it would mean in terms of making the book more marketable and what they'd want to publish, in general. Then she briefly seemed to attempt to get me to say the right things, to salvage the conversation, I think, like when I said "I guess what I like about writing is endings, and a novel only has one ending" she said "What about chapters? Chapters have endings!" in an encouraging, brainstormy way, and recommended an interesting-sounding book about different plot archetypes. When she mentioned that the market had skewed away from male readers and now wants a male voice to promote to recapture them, hence our meeting, I rambled about how ironically the small press world is filled with men writing and reading novels, that in my bubble men actually love reading and writing, and that I didn't know anyone under the age of like 27 or what young men liked or cared about. When I told that part to my wife she said "You told the big press editor who was asking you for a novel to pick one of the other hundred or so men in indie lit, and not you?" and laughed at me. I hadn't thought of it that way in the moment, so basically I realize now that I was aloofly giving the worst possible answer for every question. But I feel good because I was being honest and having a good conversation. I don't have any interest in writing a novel that [redacted] would publish just to, like, do it for the prestige or money or whatever. I'd rather make something I feel good about for its own sake. I think I was hoping there was interest in doing a [redacted] or something, but she said that [redacted]'s [redacted] was published because "One of her two agents is a really important guy who pushed it through," intimating that it would be impossible for me to do that (to her questions about if I have or want an agent, I said no and no). Anyway, I'm a little embarrassed and a little proud. I feel like I did the right thing for me, ultimately, but I don't think anything will come of it. I did enjoy hearing her talk about insider stuff in a way that felt carefully constructed to get a reaction from me, like about how [redacted] said that [redacted], that [redacted] was a big mistake, it seemed, and that her imprint, [redacted], positions its new fiction within the whole list of what they publish; the imprint she's in only does ∼1 literary fiction title per year, which seems funny and bleak. But she also vaguely tried to 'pitch' the press to me, gently shittalking [redacted] by saying they aren't as focused on real literary work, which in retrospect seems wrong if they only do one book of fiction per year, but also felt right in terms of what they do publish. I asked about [redacted] and mentioned [redacted] and [redacted], and she agreed about [redacted] and couldn't seem to think of anyone else, which is kind of funny, in retrospect, since her debut novel came out in [redacted]. I think she was trying to gauge my reaction about advance sizes, too; she said that [redacted] got a $700k advance for [redacted], which seems insane and made me laugh (I hadn't heard of this book before). I said that it seemed to me that big advances were ruinous for the author, like with [redacted], putting them in a pit of impossible expectations that might drive them insane. She also framed things in a way where it seemed like [redacted] was hoping to find someone with some sense of cache in the indie world, like with [redacted], and that a mix of positive and negative publicity would be good and useful, but I didn't like how that felt very transparently about a marketing angle to capture some sales instead of emphasizing an approach to writing. Last night when I was talking it through with my wife I kept thinking of it as some sort of biblical temptation test that I passed by not desperately trying to say yes to things just to get a book deal. Maybe I ruined things for myself in some way, and I probably should have known better going into it, so I guess that's partly why I feel embarrassed. But thinking through it all now I feel like I better understand my own desires and beliefs. Does that make sense? Sorry for rambling about it.
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