Well-Being While Querying
Locating Our Locus of Control in the Publishing Process
Hello, Protagonists,
Welcome back to Letters from the Creative Life. These occasional essays explore the quieter corners of living: small reflections on art, ambition, and the tender balancing act of building a meaningful life in a noisy world. Think of them as letters from our lives to yours. Enjoy!
xo,
Joanna & Evelyn
Well-Being While Querying
Locating Our Locus of Control in the Publishing Process
For most of the writers I know, querying is a daunting experience. If we want our work to be traditionally published, we stand at a gate controlled by literary agents whose response to our work is ultimately: yes or no to representation. Submitting our beloved work to this assessment involves tremendous vulnerability and courage.
What Querying Is and What Querying Is NOT
Agents earn their living by offering representation and then selling their clients’ work to publishers, who in turn buy books they think they can sell to readers. It’s important for us to understand that agents and editors assess how our work meets their predictions of the publishing marketplace.
We get ourselves in trouble when we tangle up our intrinsic value with this assessment. But the results of querying do not signify our worth as artists. Querying reveals if a business professional thinks they can sell our story in the current market. These two things are NOT the same, and as much as possible, we need to keep them separate.
So, how do we walk up to this gate and take care of our well-being as creatives?
Why do I write?
In the intensity of querying, I can get myopic. And when the single goal of getting an agent fills my frame, I lose touch with my whole self. So, throughout the querying process, I back up and remember why I write.
My answers fall into two categories. The first involves the process of writing. I write to explore who I am and the world around me. The day-to-day act of discovering characters and plot challenges me like no other creative endeavor and gives me deep satisfaction. Writing is essential to my well-being.
The second category involves the outcomes of writing. I write with the desire to be in dialogue with the wider world. I want to share my stories, delight readers, and sell tons of books. Backing up and identifying all the reasons I write helps me open the frame, honor the wholeness of my creative life, and offers an opportunity to find a bit more agency.
It’s so helpful to remember that writing is so much more than a book deal.
Process vs Outcome Goals
In addition, understanding the distinction between process and outcome intentions can help us while querying. Process goals are actionable, concrete, and within our control. They prioritize our experience and growth. Outcome goals focus on an end result and often depend on circumstances outside of our control.
And here’s the kicker – our belief in the control we have over our lives plays a big part in our well-being. This psychological concept is called locus of control.
Individuals with a greater internal locus of control believe their own actions, as opposed to external forces like luck or circumstances, determine their lives. An internal locus of control is correlated with higher achievement, motivation, persistence, resilience to stress, and better mental and physical health. So, how can we adopt an internal locus of control in querying?
Focusing on the Process
One way to recenter our control is to focus on the process of querying. We can make concrete, actionable goals for ourselves, such as the number of agents to query or even the number of rejections to achieve. This works because it moves our attention from an outcome we can’t control to a process that we can.
Another process goal can be to learn about marketing and refine our query packet. It’s helpful for me to remember that writing a novel and marketing a novel are two different skills. Considering I spent years learning to craft a novel, I think I can dedicate more serious time to work on my query.
Our novels deserve a solid marketing effort to give them their best chance at being selected by agents, editors, and readers. Some writers bristle at investing in marketing, but without it, we sacrifice our agency in this step. A concrete process goal could be to get a professional query critique, take a book marketing course, or read fifty jacket copies to spruce up a pitch.
Like many writers, I find working on a new novel helps me through querying. This makes sense in terms of our locus of control. By immersing ourselves in a creative process we love and placing our attention on something we have control of and confidence in, we enhance our ability to keep going and our enjoyment along the way.
Boosting our Agency over the Outcome
While focusing on the process is helpful, I don’t want to dismiss my external, outside-my-control goals; that would leave me incomplete. I still want to delight readers and sell lots of books! Our audacious intentions help us manifest our dreams. But, how can we hold our outcome-based goals and keep disappointment from crushing our creative spirit while querying?
First, I like to see all the ways I could control the outcome. One way is to look self-publishing and hybrid-publishing square in the eye and see that I can put my book out in the world no matter what.
Unlike any other period in history, writers can ignore the gate and still be published. Even established authors are looking for new ways to reach readers. Sometimes loosening our grip on how we achieve the outcome can give us more freedom and creative possibilities.
Another way we can expand our agency around the outcome is to adjust our expected timeline of the process or commit to keep working until our novels and the market align. We control how long we try.
I think this is where hearing about other authors’ arduous journeys can help us model the endurance needed for publishing. By sourcing our approval and control from within, we can maintain the resilience and persistence needed to reach our ambitious dreams.
We Can Do Hard Things
As we embark on the querying adventure, may we remember our capacity, center in our deepest intentions, show up to the process, own the work we have control over, and loosen our attachment to any one outcome. Our novels has already succeeded in enriching our lives, and now get to help them find their way out into the world.
Share your thoughts in the comments.
📝 Why do you write?
🎨 What creative adventure are you eyeing next?
🏔️ What’s your ambitious goal for 2026?
'I write to explore who I am and the world around me. The day-to-day act of discovering characters and plot challenges me like no other creative endeavor and gives me deep satisfaction. Writing is essential to my well-being'. And amen to that!
I’m in the querying trenches so needed to hear these words today. Thank you. 🤩 Got two MS requests from top agents early on (who both passed but gave lovely feedback) but now lots of nos! 🫶🏻🤞🏻 but I write because I love it, too.