Duality - In Publishing And In Life

On Friday I spent a rather painful fifty minutes at my therapist's office moaning about something or other (well, I know, but I cannot reveal it here!) before she spoke about the conflict within all of us - or the duality - of striving towards both independence and dependence. I took her words to heart and applied them to the situation in question, but over the past 48 or so hours I've been thinking about this conversation in relation to my career.

Duality.

As in here I am, striving to be a writer yet on the marketing side of a publishing house. The department that in an Acquisitions meeting will decide the fate of a book based on it's market worth. Essentially, I'm on the team that agrees with sales in their rants that a book about bisexual bees will never have a chance! How dare we put the millions of dollars this company generates into such a risk, no matter how stunning the writing, how heartfelt the characters, how racy the dialogue.

And yet, I can think back to many instances in which I've heartily agreed with my peers; sometimes even nodding in assent. Except that sometimes I have to sit back and think... What if at some point my middle grade novel is in front of such a committee and as they discuss its fate they say, "Another novel with a Southern protagonist? Oh, we've been there." Or, "Another character-heavy novel? No, no. We need plot, plot, and more plot. We need chase scenes."

Where do I stand in all of this?

At 22, when I started working in publishing and I was that eager girl in the cubicle next to you who does her work a little too quickly and reads all of the galleys in the office - whether she works on them or not - I was a staunch marketer. But as of late, as I wonder where or if there's a home for my novel, I'm beginning to see that maybe, just maybe, I'm on the other side of the widening river between what writers deliver and what publishers are willing to publish. Because at the end of the day, I know how much work goes in to a novel, and since I took the risk to write it, complete with near breakdowns, 200 or so pages of extra material I tell myself was needed to better understand my character, and a lot of 4:30 a.m. mornings, I'd like someone in this industry to take a risk on me.

Of course, it's 6:44 a.m. as I write this and in fourteen minutes my alarm clock will go off and alert me that the week, at my 9 to 5 job, is about to begin. And there's the duality. Because while I may want to stand on the risk-taking, writer's side of the river I just spoke about, in the end, the other side's paying for the apartment where I now sit, the computer at which I write, and the cup of coffee I plan on buying at the stand on the corner because I'm bleary eyed and tired from the struggle.