Selling My Soul (In a Good Way) is a weekly journal

about my efforts to get a debut novel published.

There is a picture displayed on my desk from where I got lost in the mountains back in the single digit years of the 2000s.

I was only lost for a few hours.

On the last day of a backpack, the group of hikers (from my church) that I was leading were all eating breakfast and readying themselves to tramp back to the cars after nearly a week in the backcountry. I’d just departed to (as I say to my dog) “do my business.” After successfully completing said business, my mind wandered and so did my feet. In part, I was reveling in how nice the hiking had been. In part, I didn’t want to immediately return to our campsite around a lake because that meant the official end of the adventure. In part, who knows?

After a few—and then more than a few—thoughtless steps, I stopped musing and returned to my current reality. I surveyed the immediate area of relatively level ground in the midst of an immense Sierra Nevada forest. Where had I done my “business” just moments before? Dunno! Why couldn’t I see a blue-tinged glimpse of the lake where I and my fellow hikers were camped? Dunno! How could I be so heedless of my surroundings? Easy answer: humans can be remarkably heedless in all surroundings.

I inventoried my supplies: a cheap, lightweight trowel for digging a hole in the dirt and a partial roll of toilet paper. End of supplies. In maybe ten minutes of staggering hither and yon in the seemingly endless forest, I “discovered” a little lake. It wasn’t where we were camped, but it was . . . something.

I’m going to make this sad short story as short as possible—after all, being lost only lasted part of a morning. Using the lake in the picture on my desk as my “north star,” I methodically searched in every direction, always with the lake (really, more a pond) in sight. I found several faint trails that didn’t lead anywhere. Then I stumbled onto the “right” trail to the “right” lake.

Lost boy became found boy.

Weeks later, just before the first storms rumbled across the Sierra with snow, I day-hiked back to where I’d been lost, “easily” finding the lake/pond, and snapped some pictures.

I wanted to remember. Remember what? Feeling lost. Feeling helpless. Feeling stupid. Feeling fear. Feeling on the verge of being out-of-control. Feeling those feelings we don’t like to feel.

Why write about my mountain moments of fear multiplied? Because it’s at least a shadow of how I feel right now with seeking a literary agent to represent me. I feel helpless. I feel out-of-control. I’m seventy-two (72) query letters into a search to find the right trail—er, the right agent—and feel like I’m getting nowhere.

All I can do is to keep methodically searching in the forest of agents . . .

Since last week, I’ve sent five (5) more queries and received three (3) more rejections.

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“A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid. ” – William Faulkner

Picture of Lower Cora Lake, Sierra Nevada