Danielle Younge-Ullman: Waiting for Godot…or Publishing House X

This week’s guest, Toronto-based novelist Danielle Younge-Ullman, is also a playwright and actor. Her one-act play, 7 Acts of Intercourse, debuted at the SummerWorks Festival in 2005. And Canada’s National Post calls Falling Under, her novel just out from Plume, “gutsy, emotional, sexually charged and … unremittingly intense.” – Meg
I wrote my first manuscript in 2003 and sent the partial off to one of the few publishing houses that accept unagented submissions. (Let’s call it Publishing House X.)
Realistically, I knew I’d be waiting 2-3 months, but I had dreams of being read overnight and receiving effusive emails and phone calls from editors who wanted to buy the book without even seeing the rest of it. (Go ahead and have a chuckle at my expense, folks.)
FIVE MONTHS later, after much pining and angst, I got a request for the full manuscript. Of course I was thrilled and figured since I was now in a smaller pool of books (REQUESTED books!), I would not have to wait so long this time to get The Call.
I did the totally dorky thing of dropping the manuscript off to the publishing house in person (I now know this is frowned upon) with an absurd hope that I would see the editor in question and she would, for some reason, fall at my feet and make me an offer of publication on the spot. (Yep, keep laughing.)
A YEAR LATER I’d written a new book and STILL … no news from Publishing House X, though I’d sent a couple of gentle email inquiries. Publisher X had a strong message on their website about not accepting multiple submissions, by the way, so I had not submitted anywhere else. Plus, somehow I thought they would be “The One” and didn’t want to jinx the process.
18 MONTHS after the full request (yes, that’s 23 months total) I’d landed an agent with my next manuscript, Falling Under. (After my long wait with the first book, I knew for the second that an agent was the way to go.)
With Falling Under about to go on submission, I was reasonably sure my first book wasn’t going to sell, and I was going in such a different direction with my writing, I wasn’t certain I wanted it to.
So … after 19 months (24 total) I made the scary decision to withdraw my first book from consideration at Publishing House X. I did this with a polite email and tried to let the project go, but it was a hard thing to do.
Nearly 6 months later, I finally received that first manuscript back in the mail, with a vague but nice letter that was neither acceptance nor rejection.
I barely had time to look at it.
My agent had sold Falling Under and I was already into edits with Plume.
It was funny and sad and strangely satisfying to see the manuscript, that pile of paper on which I had placed so much hope, into which I had poured so much of myself, sitting ignored at my front door for over three weeks before I got around to taking it up to my office and sticking it in a file. I had learned lessons in professionalism, in patience and in persistence. (Though there were more to come and will be more still, after this.)
In case anyone ever accuses me of being an overnight success, it has been a 6.5-year journey from starting to write to the publication of my debut novel, and that is after 10 years of rejection while pursuing the equally crazy and difficult career of acting. And in the middle of it all, my first agent disappeared just as we were about to go on submission and I had to find another one … but that’s another story.
Worth it? Every second. But I’m glad I didn’t know it would take this long! – Danielle