The long road to literary success: Inside Andrew Boryga's 10-year novel saga

When the path to publication is long, LONG, but worth it

Photo credit: David Gonzalez

Hey there, and welcome back to Poe Can Save Your Life, my occasional newsletter about writing, craft, and, hmmm, are we even still calling it the creator economy?

In any case, I'm excited to bring you a new interview in my recent series focusing on writers and their debuts. Today’s guest is Andrew Boryga, whose very funny novel VICTIM comes out from Doubleday on March 12th AND whose journey to this point has been a long one.

How long exactly? 10 years, people. 10 years. 10 YEARS. A whole damn decade.

Why am I belaboring this point? It’s simple. Books rarely come together quickly, and yet many of us STILL get depressed about how long it’s taking us. We still beat ourselves up about not being further along, closer to the big book deal, whatever. Meanwhile it’s just the territory, not something that’s personally wrong with us.

That’s reason enough to read the interview you’ll find below, but there are lots more reasons. Andrew and I had this exchange by email, and every time he came back with an answer, I was struck by how frank and generous that answer was. Hearing his story gave me life. I think it’ll give you life, too. (So will VICTIM, which is up for preorder.)

Let’s dive in.

Andrew, thank you so much for talking to us about VICTIM! Can you begin with a little bit about your background and how you came to writing?

I was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, and grew up there with my mom and sisters. To hear my mother tell it, I've had a big imagination and a knack for telling stories since I was little. On my 5th birthday she threw me a party in our apartment. In the middle of it, I wanted to prove that I was a “big boy” and insisted that I take the trash out. But when I went out to the trash room in the hallway, I got stuck inside, and I guess the party didn't notice for a little while. I was probably in there for 10 minutes or something, before someone realized the birthday boy was gone. But apparently, I wrote about what happened in school for some assignment and dramatized it so much that my teacher called my mother concerned. That was probably my first successful story. 

I decided I wanted to be a writer at age 16. For a while before then, I told myself and others that I wanted to be an engineer. I had no interest in actual engineering. I just knew that the one kid in my school who had a real house, and didn't live in an apartment like the rest of us, had a dad who was an engineer. But when I started looking into colleges and found out that studying engineering required taking all these math and science classes I hated, I decided having a house wasn't all that important.

I studied English and creative writing in college, went to MFA school directly after my undergrad studies, dropped out within six months, and then came back to complete my degree a few years later. 

Why did you drop out of your MFA? And how did you eventually write VICTIM?

Phew, that is a whole novel in itself to be honest. But basically, I got to the University of Miami and realized two important things: 1) after some 16 years of school, I was tired of being a student. And 2) Despite my dreams of writing a novel, and early starts under my belt that already had Javi (the protagonist of VICTIM) in it, I was 22-years-old and didn't know shit about real life. There were other factors, too, like the fact that I was quite lonely and couldn't get around the city because Miami's public transit system is wack and I was such a city kid that I didn't even have my driver's permit. Looking back, I'm thankful I had the presence of mind to realize it wasn't the right timing for me. 

After I left, I went back to New York, back to the Bronx, and just worked for a few years. I moved in with my girlfriend, who became my fiancee, and eventually we made our way back to Miami because she's from here and because I learned how to drive and was ready to get the hell out of New York. On a whim, I went to a reading one night and ran into the director of the creative writing program at UM. I always figured she probably hated me because I had dropped out, but just the opposite, she was so happy to see me, and told me there was an open spot that was mine if I wanted it. 

At that point, in 2016, 2017, the timing was much better. After a few years working, and writing my novel in the early mornings before work, I was ready to devote myself full time to the MFA program. I worked on what later became VICTIM all through my program and got my agent shortly after graduation in 2019. But it wasn't until 2020 that the current iteration of VICTIM finally came together, and I actually completed the draft that we later sold in 2022. 

So, all told, I put in 10 years of playing with the same core characters in different permutations until I finally got it right. 

This is all really reassuring. Because we only usually see the end result of someone's efforts, the published book, ecstatic blurbs, etc., it's easy to imagine that [successful writer] sat down one day and, months later, stood up from a finished, salable draft. But that’s almost never the case, right?

Related: You mentioned getting an agent in 2019 and selling the novel in 2022. What were those processes like?

I wish it were that simple! But no, it was most definitely a long grind full of countless false starts, lots of lows, and a few highs mixed in there. 

Getting my agent was an interesting process. Around 2015 or 2016, I started freelancing quite regularly for outlets like The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. Over the next few years while doing this, I was approached by a handful of agents. The majority of them wanted me to write a nonfiction book, because I was only known as a journalist during this period. I'd say that actually I really wanted to write this novel and they'd reply, “Oh, yeah, okay, sure, sure. But a memoir...” Those conversations were interesting because I started realizing that the more high-powered ones talking to me saw me as someone they probably should have on their list because of where my byline was appearing. They weren't necessarily interested in my writing or my vision.

I was more interested in finding an agent who would be invested in me, and in particular, invested in my dream of publishing this novel I was working on while my journalism career was starting to take off. Eventually, I just stopped looking and stopped entertaining discussions for a while, and focused on writing the best draft I could. When I was ready again, I tried to be a lot more intentional about my agent search and look at people representing young, up-and-coming literary writers and doing right by them. From the beginning of my search, I was very interested in my current agent, Danielle Bukowski, because I saw how supportive she was of her client Bryan Washington. We got connected and I was so pleased to hear that she was a fan of my non-fiction, but more importantly, that she seemed genuinely interested in my novel. After reading my draft at the time she clearly saw the bigger picture and gave me some excellent notes to improve, which basically sealed the deal for me. She's got this impressive roster of writers now, which is so dope to see, but back then she didn't have all that many clients. But I didn't mind. I could tell she was ambitious and hungry, and more importantly, that she had good taste and genuinely did enjoy my work. Working with her has been a joy and I'm so happy about the choice I made. 

After I signed in 2019, we worked on probably three full drafts together. I'd revise and rewrite and then send it to her and she'd read it and give me detailed notes and then we'd talk about it. It was great to have her as a reader, and her notes were always insightful. It wasn't until the spring/early summer of 2022 that I sent her a version and she was like, okay, this is the one, let's go out to market. 

Mind you, I had been nearly 10 years in on this book by then, and so I figured the actual sale process would probably take a while, too. But that was the fastest part of this whole journey. Danielle sent it out, and I believe that within a week or so we already had a few editors who wanted to meet. After meeting with them, it was super clear to me that Cara Reilly at Doubleday was the best person to see VICTIM through. She got the book and everything I was trying to do, and all of her notes and suggestions were excellent and made me say, “Huh, I hadn't thought of that, but damn that works!” Doubleday swooped in with a great pre-empt offer and, yeah, the rest is history. 

In the vein of “ten years is a long time,” what kept you going? And how's it feel to have the book coming out at last? 

To tell you the truth, I tried to let go of this story many times. After each failure or setback, I'd tell myself I needed to step away from these characters and this world and just write something else. Then I'd go off and try to do that. But no matter what I did, I always ended up circling around the same people, and the same themes, and I just realized at some point: I'm going to have to write this book one way or another. Going to have to just see it through, even if it takes me 20 years or something. It is very gratifying to see the book finally coming out now, even though I can't quite pinpoint how it happened. From my vantage point, it feels like I just had my head down working for so long, and now I'm looking up and it's here. I received my first hardcover edition recently, and seeing it printed and bound like that was surreal and such an amazing moment. It made all the years I put in feel completely worth it. I just hope the next one doesn't take me as long. 

Last question. I saw a good piece of advice from Lincoln Michel the other day—“just finish things.” Literally, “just finish things.” Understanding that everyone's path is different, do you have any advice for writers longing to get where you are now?

I love that. It's true. Finishing things is huge. But if I had to give advice it would be three things: One, focus on the work. By that I mean, focus on telling the best possible story that you can, and telling the story the best story that only you can tell—regardless of whether or not there is a “market” for it. In fact, forget the market altogether. Forget about building a brand. Forget about making the right connections. Focus on the work. After you have that part done, which is the hardest part, then you can worry about all that other stuff. 

Two: Have fun. The years I struggled to finish VICTIM, I did not enjoy writing. I was putting all this pressure on myself to finish it. I was worrying about Twitter and why I didn't have a fucking blue checkmark (back when they were cool). I was worrying about what people might think about it before I'd even finished it. It was a slog. And it showed in the writing. But as soon as I let go of all that bullshit (see point one), I started to actually have fun writing again. I wrote scenes that I found funny and poignant, and that still make me laugh and appreciate them when I read them back today. When you enjoy the writing, and when it surprises you and entertains you, then it is far more likely that your reader will have the same reaction. 

And three: Let go of all your expectations about how any of this might go. Back when I first started writing the earliest versions of this book, I thought I had shit all mapped out. I was supposed to finish it during my first stint at MFA school, sell it immediately after, and ride off into the sunset a famous author by age 25 or whatever. I would have never thought the journey would look like it actually did. And that is my point. Try your best not to set yourself up for expectations that are highly, highly unlikely you'll be able to predict with any certainty. Control what you can control, which is writing a good book. After you do that, do your best to get it out into the world, and then let the chips fall where they may. I think that, eventually, you'll end up wherever you were always meant to be.

See Andrew’s website and fantastic Substack for more. You can also find him on Twitter and Instagram.

A Good Link

Speaking of life-giving real talk about how difficult it is to write and publish, are you reading Julian Simpson’s Development Hell? It’s a newsletter about script and screenwriting, but it’s just as much about surviving tough industries and tough times. I particularly loved his recent post on “The Collapse of Hollywood” (which is relevant to the collapse of the media industry and how AI is changing creative work, too).

As always, thank you for reading, and wishing you luck with your 10-year slog toward the big dream, whatever it is,

Cat