Completed Manuscript Syndrome: Surviving the Pain of Publishing

“A person who publishes a book appears willfully in the public eye with his pants down.” –Edna St. Vincent Millay 

“You are suffering, once again, from CMS,” my husband said in response to my shouting at the cat and then bursting into tears and announcing I hated my life.
“No, I’m not,” I said, “everything’s hopeless.”
“CMS,” he said, “completed manuscript syndrome. It’s the exact way you acted with your previous contracts.”

He had a point. He didn’t know me in 1990 when my first novel was purchased by Harper & Row, but I reacted with panic, sadness, and fear. Then I went to Zabars and bought a coffee cake, ate the whole thing, left messages for people when I knew they would not be home, and when they called back, listened to their squeals of delight, lying face down on my bed muttering, “Leave me alone.” I was unable to tell my parents, and when I did, I refused to provide any solid information except to say, “The book sold. It will probably get canceled.”

Well, it didn’t get canceled. And after it was published and I was paid, I went on with my life, mostly forgetting to tell people I was a writer when they asked what I did. After presenting a play at the Actor’s Studio, I walked through Times Square with Norman Mailer who happened to be the teacher for my work. When he asked me what was happening in my life I admitted I just had a first novel published.

“That’s wonderful,” Norman said, “but you will suffer.. It’s a terrible thing this writing business.”
“But you’re Norman Mailer,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s been nothing but pain.”

After that, Harper refused to buy my next book which then sold to an English publisher for much less money. This did not cause me to go into a deep depression as the novel, while something I was proud of, did not contain any tragic autobiographical details and also I could pretend it didn’t happen as it only sold in the UK, Canada, and Australia. I did go to London and had a good time, staying with the publisher with whom I had a brief affair. I came back to resume teaching, met my ex-husband, had a baby, moved back to London, then Dallas, then Chicago and got a divorce. During this time, I wrote many things, all of which were rejected.

photo by Robert Anasch

Then, in 2003, I sent my agent a new novel, Stone Garden and then returned to my decidedly unglamourous life of teaching many teenagers how to write. I was a high school English teacher, a single mother, and refused to call myself a writer. Then my agent called to tell me there was an auction taking place for my book with two publishers bidding for the rights. I was shocked as I didn’t know she was already submitting the book. The night before my husband was combing lice, given to me by my stepdaughter, out of my hair and I had announced, “I will never get published again.”

By the end of the day, I had a six-figure advance and while I was thrilled on some levels I also wanted to kill myself.  A few weeks later the first half of the advance arrived and I walked in snowshoes, despite there being very little snow, to my husband’s house which I had refused to move into since he had three unruly teenagers and I preferred my clean, quiet house with my only child. I was clutching the check with all the zeroes. He made fun of my snowshoes, I announced I hated him and returned to my own house where I promptly, inexplicably, signed the back of the check and sent it to a person who sometimes offered financial advice. Then I announced I had lost the check and there was no point in asking for a replacement.

A few days later I was having a physical, screaming at my ex-husband on a cell phone over the fact he wanted half of my book money. The doctor told me to hang up and prescribed an antidepressant.

This was in 2004, and since then I have failed to sell a manuscript until this past year. My important agent retired, I went through two other agents, and then after my memoir made the rounds and was kindly rejected, I paused. I started posting chapters of the memoir on Substack and was contacted by a new Indie Imprint called Empress Editions. When the publisher asked if I would consider adapting the memoir to auto fiction, I agreed. This October, my fourth novel after twenty-two years will be published. It’s called MotherPerson, and in this world of social media, I am being asked, nicely, to appear on Instagram and Substack Live to help inspire sales. I do this, loving my readers and publisher, but finding the process of self-promotion awful.

Thus, my husband’s comment about completed manuscript syndrome, CMS. While I love teaching and mostly love writing, the part where it’s actually brought to life and people say things about my work is both wonderful and terrible. I blame my father, who was a brilliant writer and found little joy in the selling. Like my father, I am a teacher, and I also love sharing my work with others. But there is something about finishing a book, sending the thing into the world, that causes me to contemplate self-harm. And no one wants to hear anyone complaining about publishing. 

–Molly Moynahan