Weeding is one of those jobs that is trickier than it seems on the surface. You would think it’s straight manual labor, but in fact you have to have some knowledge to do it; you have to know a weed from a cultivated plant, and you have to know how to get the root. Otherwise you pull up the plants you want, keep the ones you don’t, and weeds return stronger and more entrenched because their root system has deepened and spread, making them harder to eliminate.
I get frequent questions about publishing and agents. Surprisingly I don’t get many questions about writing. People want to know what agents and publishers want, and sometimes I start to answer these questions and then I realize: why bother? They didn’t do their homework before they asked me. If they won’t read what agents and publishers themselves say they want, why would they read what I say?
But I will say this: the process of writing a book and getting it published is an awful lot like growing a garden. What you don’t know will work against you, and your ignorance can cause you to root out the things that matter. So first do your homework and gain some knowledge. Know a weed that’s choking your story from the seed you should be nurturing.
Once you learn that, you will recognize an editor or agent who knows what you should root up and what you should keep, and the ones who don’t. You want to work with the former. You don’t want to work with the latter. The people you work with will have enormous impact on your career and reputation so choose them carefully; the wrong choices can plow your career under before it ever has a chance to produce a harvest.
Above all, keep doing your homework. And have the discipline to root out your own weeds when you discover them.
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