ADRIAN ZOLOTOv: CHANGING PROJECTS AND MARKETABILITY

Hello Writers! After surviving my midterms I’m back with another Writers In Progress interview! This week I was able to sit down and talk with Adrian Zolotov about when to change projects and marketability online and in publishing.

Adrian is a 22 year old trans, filipino man who has been writing novels for five years. His notable projects, which we will reference throughout the interview are: A MURDER OF FOXES (AMOF), A WALTZ INTO RUIN (AWIR), and OF GODS AND MONSTERS (OGAM).

A Murder of Foxes is about a high school girl caught between her her found family and her role in a divine prophecy. A Waltz Into Ruin is a Cleopatra/Mark Anthony retelling in which the lovers are told by Philippine divinity that the other will bring about their shared end. Of Gods And Monster, Adrian’s latest work, is about a secret society created by Philippine divinity to influence current politics.

The reason I wanted to talk to Adrian this week is because AMOF was a query-ready project that received positive, personalised feedback during the window where Adrian was querying. Despite this, Adrian decided to set the project aside, something that baffled me when I first heard about it. Not only that but he then shelved AWIR which, in my circles at least, had a cult following -- and it hadn’t even been published yet! I was stumped. Thankfully, I was able to pick Adrian’s brain about how he writes, why he set the project aside (and how it applies to you!), with some bonus discussion about marketability.

We talked a bit about Adrian’s writing process, and he mentioned that he would write projects ‘for practice’ to become a better writer, rather than with a true intent to publish them. He moves from one project to the other as they suit his writerly needs. (This was a new concept to me, as I’ve spent the past few years refining one project!) This was how Adrian ended up writing AWIR. He realized that he had moved into the querying phase too quickly with AMOF and that there were mistakes in his previous manuscript that were unprofessional. Quote:

“The only reason why I shelved it is because I was in such a rush to query and I was so excited to do it that I decided to just dive right into it and because of that my query letter wasn’t that great and there were mistakes in my first chapter grammar wise, it just wasn’t very professional, and because I rushed into it I feel like I -- not so much lost the opportunity -- but I went for it too fast.”

Looking back, Adrian wishes he had taken his time learning the hidden rules of querying.

The perils of moving into the querying phase are noteworthy, because once an agent rejects a project you can’t query them with the same one again. Not if you have a new query letter, not if you’ve adjusted the pacing, nada. The only exception is if you’ve made major revisions, and some warn against even that. Querying itself isn’t one shot, but generally speaking you only have one shot with each agent.

Leaving behind a project is often heartbreaking, but Adrian stated that he was comfortable leaving AMOF behind because he knew he would eventually come back to it and make it better. He understood it wasn’t a reflection of his current quality of writing. However, even when moving on from a project he doesn’t intend to come back to, he’s grateful for it.

“I know it helped me become a better writer … I don’t really look at anything in my writing journey as negative … I like to view things -- even failures -- as something that is positive. If I end up walking away from a project, I view it as ‘it might not be good now, but it could be good later.’”

This is a good thing to keep in mind; a “thank you, next” attitude when it comes to writing. Regardless of whether you’ve only ever worked on one project like myself or several like Adrian, when you move on it’s good to remember that you’ve still gained experience. Marie Kondo it! Thank the project for what it gave you, understand that though it’s not perfect, it helped you become a better writer.

After setting aside AMOF, Adrian said there was a new focus on marketability in his projects, because “at the end of the day, publishing is a gamble. When you want to gamble, you want the odds to be in your favour, you want to know it’s going to pay off.” Agents and publishing houses don’t invest in your book, not the way most think they do -- they bet on it. Ultimately, no one knows how well your book will perform when it hits shelves. Marketability is how one tips the odds in their favour, if nothing else.

“Getting published is about talent, luck, and timing, and not everyone has all three of those things … it’s about having a majority of those things”

Adrian’s next project, AWIR was supposed “to ease [him] back into something [he] wanted to write about.” It was supposed to be an easy-going project to flex his writing muscles. A transition piece, by his own admission. However, when the intro post blew up on Twitter (gaining over 100 likes in a few hours), he “got lost in the engagement” and “forgot the reason why he started writing in the first place.”

Ah, the perils of social media. We discussed in my last interview with Rune Rivers how social media can bring writers together, form communities, and market books. However, here we see its more dangerous elements as well. It’s easy to stop writing for ourselves and write for engagement which, as any author will tell you, is exactly how you burn out and learn to hate your writing. You hate it because it’s not yours anymore. Social media, for better and for worse, shapes our perspectives and our work. Hell, I only started Writers In Progress because a wistful little tweet I made got almost 800 likes. No one exists in a vacuum.

Eventually, Adrian came to the realisation that AWIR wasn’t coming from his authentic heart, but from a desire to please others and get engagement, and he moved onto his current project: Of Gods And Monster (which, yes, is named after the Lana Del Ray song, and who can blame him).

Here we’ve seen two examples of why you might end a project -- you’ve outgrown it and it isn’t what you need -- but moving on is never easy. Adrian stated that while he is always grateful for his projects, this was a hard mindset to learn. We talked briefly on it:

Adrian: “I wasn’t always like that, it did take quite a lot of learning on my part. It was a very… hard process to get to that on my part, but it’s been a lot better for my sanity and wellbeing I will say.”

Ruth: “That’s great to hear. Honestly… There is so much suffering that will happen to you, and I find that one of the only things you can do to combat it is to not add to it yourself. Don’t bring yourself down, don’t pile more suffering onto your own plate because everyone else is capable of doing that already. You’re the only person who can be like ‘no, I’m not going add more to this.’”

Adrian: “Definitely. I feel like self love in a society that doesn’t push that on to you is a revolutionary act. I’m not going to say that it’s easy to do that, but everyone should try if they want to have a better outlook on life and have a better person.”

In previous interviews I’ve discussed how a project can feel like a part of yourself, you put a bit of yourself and your identity into everything you write. During the interview, Adrian and I discussed ‘killing your past self’ in terms of both transness and trauma (that got rather personal so I’ll refrain from too many quotes here), but for the purposes of this interview I think there’s something else I can add to it now.

We talked about how there was no ‘happy ending’ for the versions of ourselves who had ‘died’ so we could survive. For me that was killing my younger self so I could live through trauma as a whole person, for Adrian that was setting aside the version of himself he was before he came out as trans.

Looking back on this interview, I realise now how moving on from a project can be part of killing the past self. We grow as writers, as Adrian does, and in doing so we outgrow projects, goals, or subjects. Sometimes a project just isn’t what we need it to be, and Marie Kondo’ing it is the only solution. Be grateful for what it brought you, understand it was what you needed the time, and pull the trigger. You’re going to be okay.

You can find out more about Adrian on Twitter and his website. Subscribe to the Writers In Progress newsletter here.