by Ciara Smyth
I am a terrible person to write about queer joy because I am cranky and when I smile people think I’m being sarcastic. An anecdote I like to tell, in outraged tones, is about the time my oldest friend read my first ever manuscript and said with genuine surprise, ‘This is funny. Which is weird, because you’re…not.” I am yet to recover from this mortal wound. I’m one of those people who cannot really appreciate anything for longer than two seconds because as soon as I achieve something I am immediately on to the next thing. When I was querying I thought all my problems would be solved if I got an agent. The day I got my wonderful agent Alice, my then partner and I celebrated by going to our favourite restaurant. We had been through many tears over the querying process (all mine, of course). But in the middle of that dinner, I started crying. All I could think was that the book would never sell. Stuff like this may be part of the reason why I’m single now.
So in the spirit of personal growth, I’m going to talk about a few things on my publishing journey that I am deeply grateful for and I’m going to do my best to be earnest. Bear with me, I feel Wednesday Addams when she tries smiling for the first time.
I’m so lucky that for my debut I got to work with two amazing editors; Stephanie Stein for HarperTeen and Chloe Sackur for Andersen Press. I remember speaking with Chloe before she made an offer on the book and honestly, I’ve blocked out all the nice things she said (see above for an explanation of the amnesia), but I remember feeling as though all the suggestions she made for improvement were things that made so much sense that I should have realised them myself. I’ve got to work with Stephanie on two books now and her notes feel like they’ve been plucked from some deep recess of my own brain. Whenever I send her something and I feel like it’s a little off but can’t figure out why, she knows why and if I want her to, she’ll guide me towards the answer. Publishing is weird and can really kick you in the metaphorical self-esteem nards, but having people who are on your side and can mystically read your mind and know what you want to achieve before you’ve got there, is priceless.
I’ve met other incredible people through this process and unfortunately, I kind of owe that to Twitter. I am loath to appreciate Twitter on any level but I have had the opportunity to connect with people I would never otherwise get to know. I’ve been able to make friends with other debut authors in the UK, Ireland, and the US and know that they’re there if I want to share good news or ask ‘is this normal?’ Your real-life friends can’t fully understand any topic that involves you using the phrase ‘well that’s just how publishing works’, and of course you’re happy for them, but you need people who get it. I’ve had people offer to help me with things that I struggle with, even though they barely know me. Others have talked me out of black pits of despair when I feel like I’m doing everything wrong. The same people celebrate every tiny milestone or success with me because they know how important it is.
But real-life people are not dismissed because they don’t live in this topsy turvy world of publishing. My mother makes embarrassing Facebook posts and gets all her friends to buy my lesbian rom-com. My father tells people I’m one of Oprah’s favourite books (definitely not true and a misinterpretation of what a listicle is). My best friend made me a website and graphics and a trailer and tells me how to respond to emails when I feel overwhelmed. He also claims to have written half of book two but he is deliberately misrepresenting ‘brainstorming’ for the immense glory of appearing in the acknowledgments. I couldn’t have managed this process without them.
You might be reading this and thinking Ciara, what about the queer bit? MAKE IT GAYER! Well, that bit is coming now. When I was fifteen I had the fleeting thought, ‘Am I a lesbian?’ I remember the moment vividly. I was standing in my bedroom with the yellow walls and my hand was on the doorknob. I also remember what I said to myself immediately after it occurred to me. ‘No. I couldn’t be that unlucky.’ There were some other difficulties that I was dealing with at the time (I mean being fifteen, amirite?) and I thought that statistically, it would be terribly unlikely that I would have to deal with being a lesbian as well. I pushed that thought very, very, deep down and it didn’t resurface until I was much older. Putting it off probably helped in some ways, and made it much harder in others. I want it to be easier for young people now. For some, it is, for others, of course, it will be much harder than my experience.
Fifteen-year-old me could not have imagined that one day I’d be publishing a lesbian rom-com for teenagers. One where being a lesbian is not the problem. In 2002 I was fifteen. The main character of The Falling in Love Montage would have been born in 2002. I like to think she was somehow born from that moment, in my bedroom, when I first thought I might be a lesbian. I might not have felt very joyful then, but I want to tell fifteen-year-old Ciara that it’s coming.
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Ciara Smyth studied drama, teaching, and then social work at university. She thought she didn’t know what she wanted to be when she grew up. She became a writer so she wouldn’t have to grow up.
She enjoys jigging (verb: to complete a jigsaw puzzle), playing the violin badly, and having serious conversations with her pets. Ciara has lived in Belfast for over ten years and still doesn’t really know her way around.
