Allow writing to be your sweet escape 🍬

Today's guest is author Saskia Nislow.

Querying can feel sour, but writing should be sweet.

The querying process can be grueling — especially when you’re new to the publishing world and navigating it without any connections. It takes time, perseverance, and a bit of serendipity to find your footing.

Amid the uncertainty, latch onto the small moments of beauty and joy to keep you going: a stolen afternoon of writing, camping out with a notebook at a cafe, a quiet moment that’s purely yours.

Hold onto what makes writing feel like a treat.

Writing may eventually feel like a job, with deadlines and the weight of expectations, but it doesn’t have to lose its joy. Do what you can to make drafting still feel like eating candy.

In today’s interview, author Saskia Nislow reflects on the winding road that led them to an agent, how they stay in it when things get tough, and the importance of keeping writing joyful.

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OUR SPECIAL GUEST TODAY IS…

Saskia Nislow

Author

Saskia’s debut novella, Root Rot is available now from Creature Publishing!

What is the most memorable writing tip or technique that you have heard, and how did it influence your process?

Read things that challenge you. Think about writing as an art form, not just a way to communicate or to relay content.

What’s one thing about the publishing process no one tells you, but should?

It’s very, very long. Years, not months. I don’t know if this is actually something no one tells anyone. In fact, people probably do get told this. But I didn’t know and definitely had to adjust how I was thinking about things.

When life gets busy, how do you protect your time to write?

When I was in my twenties, my day job was teaching public school and I worked constantly. For a couple of those years, I was also going to graduate school on top of that. During that time, writing was a treat. Camping out with my notebook and current read at a cafe on the weekends (or a bar on weeknights) was something I looked forward to all week, the only time that felt purely mine.

Now that writing is more of a “job,” it can lose that special quality, so — when I find myself getting busy and neglecting my practice — I try to recapture that rare, stolen-time feeling.

How did you get your literary agent? What was the querying process like for you?

The querying process was hard and often very discouraging. As someone who doesn’t have an MFA or any real connections in the publishing world, it became immediately apparent that I didn’t really know what I was doing and that this was probably coming through in my queries.

I found my (amazing, wonderful) agent, Jordan Hill, after many, many, MANY rejections. This was when I had an extremely short-lived Twitter account, and I found her through one of those pitch events, which I participated in as a sort of Hail Mary gesture. I don’t even know if those exist anymore. We ended up working on my novel (not ROOT ROT) together for over a year before she officially became my agent, which was an incredible process.

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Ready for feedback that takes your story to the next level?

“With Alyssa's input, I see what needs to be revised in my draft, what works, and what does not. I am encouraged to keep going after Alyssa's professional assessment.”
—S.A. Mulholland, fiction author

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What’s one thing you do (creatively, mentally, or physically) that helps you stay in it when writing gets hard?

I’m not a great person to answer this question because what I do is essentially neglect every other aspect of my life until I get it done. I think a better strategy would be to work on sleeping enough instead.

What part of the writing process brings you the most joy?

Drafting, one hundred percent. It’s candy to me.

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ICYMI… this week on YouTube, I’m revealing REAL reasons agents keep rejecting your book.