One of the most unexpected results of being a writer is that strangers come to you for help.
Starting a little over ten years ago, I wrote a series of articles for law students in the Canadian Lawyer Magazine. I started writing them after graduation mostly as a way of talking about my own experiences. I wrote about law school recruitment and bar exams and making the move to New York. After the articles were published and over time, I started getting emails from people. A lot of them were from people who failed the bar exam and some of them were from people who wanted advice about moving to New York.
Throughout the years, I have spoken to a lot of different strangers and written many responses. At some point I started keeping these emails and now they’re filed under a tab in my inbox called “letters from humans”. Most of the time the emails are sweet and genuine. Occasionally I get one that’s too rude to dignify with a response. I used to think: who are these people writing to a random stranger asking for help? But now I find it sort of wonderful.
This got me thinking, maybe I myself should be asking for help from strangers.
I don’t know if it’s my upbringing or my personality, but asking for help was never a thing that I had turned my mind to. I always assumed that I had to just figure it out myself. But, the older I get, the more I realize that “it doesn’t hurt to ask” is absolutely right. As my hubs would say “what’s the worst that can happen? They say no?” I am pretty sure this is the attitude my readers take when they randomly email me. If they can do it, why can’t I?
To take it to a more spiritual place, I have really come to believe that if you seek, you will find. What’s left out in the sentence is the emphasis on seeking. That is, you have to really be seeking. Not on some surface level where you say you’re looking but don’t put in the work. I am talking about a deeper level of searching, of really putting your shoulder into it and really being open to what might come when you call out to the universe. You have to believe that you are worthy of help, and that you are willing to work to find that someone who can help you.
For my part, I really need help with publishing. Contracts and Torts are both complete but the publisher who printed Bankruptcy has pretty much ghosted me. I’ve contacted him several times to no avail and I haven’t even gotten a cheque for the copies of that book that have sold. It is up to me to continue my search and I am now putting out the call to the universe: I need help finding a publisher!
My plan is to put the call out for help on my website and my Instagram. I will then have to start making packets and sending them to potential publishers and writing agents. This part of the job is pretty bad but it is a necessary evil. I must now go around telling everyone that I am looking for a publisher. I am not sure what will come of it but I trust that something will come.
I just have to take the first step and ask.
So here it is universe: PLEASE HELP ME FIND A PUBLISHER!!