Acceptance is the Answer

Photo by Ian Keefe on Unsplash

Happy 2025 everyone. The year has started with a bang for me, with the publication of the paperback of The List of Suspicious Things and the announcement that it is Waterstones Fiction Book of the Month which is a complete honour. It is also especially meaningful for me. I’ve been a Christmas bookseller at Taunton Waterstones for the last four years and (this is the only place I can say this and hope you know what I mean) it feels like mummy and daddy are finally proud of me.

I now have a whirlwind of a month ahead, with promotion, events and continuing to write book two, which is very exciting and more than a little daunting all at the same time, hence I have spent the last week doing nothing but jigsaws and reading. The only writing I did do, was for

Anna Wharton

brilliant Twelve Days of Writing Advice where I talk about the one piece of writing advice that changed everything for me. Do check out the whole series, I loved reading what other writers have to say.

As I say at the top of that post, whenever I am asked for my advice about writing and publishing, I feel like a bit of a fraud. I have only written one novel, and through a combination of luck and timing (and yes, hard work, but I never underestimate the impact of the first two) it has been a wonderful experience. There are definitely a couple of things that helped me on this insane journey however, that I will happily share. I feel a bit nervous about this one, as I am no expert, so like all ‘advice’, it’s optional, and totally subjective. Take what’s useful from what I’m about to say and ignore the rest.

As my piece for Anna focused on writing, I am going to focus this post on publishing (I am talking about traditional publishing only, as I have no experience of self-publishing), though to be honest, this advice is something that was given to me in the broader context of life - and has since saved my ass on numerous occasions - but I found myself using it A LOT on my path to publication.

Most of you will know that I am seventeen years sober (this still amazes me!) and in my early days, I struggled emotionally (as many people do once the fog lifts and the substances have left the body). I found myself angrier than I had ever been before. I railed against life. Why was it like this? Why couldn’t I drink like a ‘normal’ person. Why wasn’t I a normal person? Why did I find life so hard? I felt stuck, and resentful, and shook my fist at the world and everyone in it (especially healthy people with seemingly normal lives).

A friend who is long-term sober (shoutout here to Amanda Gee) introduced me to a piece of writing from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous called Acceptance is the Answer (for any AA members, this is one of the stories at the back of the 4th edition of the Big Book, page 417). I’m not going to put the whole piece up here - you can Google if you are interested - but there is a part of this story that really struck me. It changed my perspective on sobriety, and subsequently my perspective on all my difficulties.

‘Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober, unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I could not be happy.’

So how does this relate to being a writer who wants to be traditionally published?

The way I see it is this. It’s hard. Rejection is built in at every stage. It involves a lot of waiting. It can seem unfair. Some things about the industry might not make sense. Celebrities get big advances. Books you don’t think are great will get published to great acclaim. Your novel might fit an agent’s wish list and yet you STILL get rejected. You get ghosted. It can feel as though there is no rhyme or reason to how it works. And this can drive you mad. It certainly did me.

I can remember weeping for three days straight when a particular agent requested the full manuscript of ‘The List of Suspicious Things’ then rejected it. I had thought she was ‘the one’ and it turned out she wasn’t. What kept me going then was the same piece of advice that had kept me going in those early days of sobriety. Acceptance is the answer. I had to accept that she wasn’t ‘the one.’ as much as it pained me to do so, in order to pick myself up and go again, and eventually find the AMAZING agent who is ‘the one.’ (or, as was also an option, choose another path).

To be really clear, I am not saying that all the things I listed about how publishing works are OK. What I AM saying is that they are the current reality, and when you argue with reality you go bananas (or at least I do!) Accepting that’s how it is right now is the first step to working out where your power lies WITHIN that reality. It’s the first step to changing it, changing your experience of it, or even opting out of it altogether. Acceptance doesn’t have to be a passive thing. I’m talking about seeing the world as it is in the moment so that you are able to make decisions based on reality, not on how you hope the world might be in the future.

I’m also aware that I am saying all of this from a place of having had it all work out in the end (!). I am DEFINITELY one of the lucky ones right now, but even accepting the role that luck and timing play is a form of acceptance. At least that way you can choose whether to play the game or not.

(PS after I had decided that this would be the topic of my Substack this week, the universe decided to have a little fun with me. It is the coldest weekend in a LONG time in the UK, and on Friday, my heating stopped working. Really REALLY annoyingly I realised I needed to practice what I preach, if I was to make provisions for what has proved to be a very cold weekend. Acceptance really is the answer.)