Publishing The Story I Was Told Not To Tell

I’m about to publish the story I was told not to tell. This is not the story people wanted me to write, the white washed love story, the cliché—but the true story I was meant to write.

This is the story no book publisher would touch.

A bigwig literary agent told me to put this story in a drawer. Better yet, get rid of it. Write about something else, anything else. My mother always said no one wants to hear it.

This is the story of persisting in the face of a culturally conditioned fear of seeing, hearing, and speaking of sexual violence.

I don’t have the sexy face of a celebrity to lure a sale. My face is the face of an ordinary woman—millions of us have been affected by sexual abuse, assault, and harassment.

My story isn’t an exposé. My story isn’t about graphic details, or titillation. My story is about the quest to dismantle the effects and stigmas of sexual violence. More, it’s about my journey to live authentically, to find real love, and to be seen by the world, flaws and all.

This is the story I was told not to tell. And yet, I persisted.

Over the course of a decade, I queried 300 agents, was asked by about half to submit my manuscript or proposal for consideration and by over two dozen to speak by phone (most conversations lasted an hour on average). One agent called and said she simply wanted to do me the favor of telling me why my book would never get published—I’d rearranged my schedule just so I could take this call in a quiet place (the back seat of my car) in the middle of a hectic workday.

Others seemed genuinely interested but ultimately declined to offer representation, citing my lack of a New York Times byline or some other fact known before our chat. A few said, before hanging up, that they wanted to “think about things” or “consult with a colleague” before making a decision and then ultimately, a day or week later, disclosed that it was “too risky” to take on a story that had trauma in it. When I finally did sign with an agent, book publishers offered much editorial praise for my writing but said there was “no readership” for the story.

The publishing industry, and our society at large, has had more tolerance for novels that deal with sexual abuse and assault, such as The Lovely Bones, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Speak. Narrative nonfiction, on the other hand, has been overwhelmingly “taboo,” though that’s beginning to change.

In November 2017, my agent urged me, before we submitted my book proposal to editors, to remove everything pertaining to my history of sexual abuse, as well as other “heavy” topics, including the death of my mother and the death of an almost boyfriend. Even in the era of #MeToo and #TimesUp, she advised me against using the word “rape” in my prose. She wanted me to delete whole sections that explored how childhood sexual abuse had affected my perception of myself as a girl and young woman, how the abuse had affected my dating life, and how I dealt with and triumphed over such obstacles. I toned down my language but I refused to cut what I considered to be the impetus behind the journey depicted in my book: an open love letter to my future life partner, chronicling my dating life from the ages of 14-41, the hurdles I worked to overcome, and the lessons I learned along the way.

And maybe that’s why book publishers declined. My agent subsequently decided it was time to stop submitting my book altogether. I considered that it might finally be time to give up.

I fell into a serious depression, which lasted for weeks. A friend encouraged me to write an essay about my difficulties with the publishing world. Writing always gave me a sense of purpose, and so I wrote the piece to cope with my utter lack of hope. To my surprise, Publishers Weekly published it, and Ms. Magazine reprinted it. The editorial director of my now publisher read my essay and reached out, asking to read my book. Two weeks later, I was offered a contract.

Now, my book is about to debut.

This is the story of not believing the naysayers, of pushing onward toward your goal, even in the midst of despair.

And this is the story of telling it all. Because only in doing so can we live, and write, our lives.

—

Named by Bustle as one of eight women writers with advice to follow, Tracy Strauss is former essays editor of The Rumpus and winner of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Award for nonfiction. The 2015 Writers’ Room of Boston Nonfiction fellow, her essays and short memoir have appeared in Ms., Salon, Poets & Writers Magazine, Ploughshares, The Southampton Review, and other publications.

A contributor to Glamour’s sex and relationships column, Tracy has appeared on television as a relationship blogger for the Huffington Post. The 2013-2014 VP of the Women’s National Book Association Boston chapter, Tracy currently teaches writing at the New England Conservatory and Grub Street in Boston. In her free time, she moonlights as a Zumba instructor.

Her debut #MeToo-themed self-help/relationships cum memoir, I Just Haven’t Met You Yet: Finding Empowerment in Dating, Love, and Life, a modern day Bridget Jones’s Diary-meets-Eat, Pray Love, will be released by Skyhorse Publishing on May 7. Follow Tracy on Twitter @TracyS_Writer and Facebook

I JUST HAVEN’T MET YOU YET: FINDING EMPOWERMENT IN DATING, LOVE, AND LIFE

A Modern-Day Bridget Jones’s Diary Meets Eat, Pray, Love, One of Bustle’s “Writers to Watch” Offers Advice, Life Lessons, and Lots of Heart

I Just Haven’t Met You Yet details Tracy Strauss’s dating history and her journey to dismantle the effects and stigmas of an abusive past, break free of destructive relationship patterns, and ultimately conquer her fear of truly being seen by the world, flaws and all. The author shares the transformative lessons she learned and self-empowerment she achieved while passing each hurdle along the way to finding the love of her life.

Tracy Strauss helps readers empower themselves by taking a challenging look at the ways the negative events of their lives, including sexual harassment and abuse, have shaped their self-perception and created obstacles to personal success, and how readers can change that troubled self-image along with their (love) lives.

I Just Haven’t Met You Yet is a modern-day journey of the heart. It is a story about taking big risks, changing old habits and beliefs about dating, and speaking back to the naysayers, especially that internal critic, the inner love saboteur. It is a prime mover and the only epistolary memoir cum dating/relationship essay book of its kind.

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing