Let John Lynch handle it

On trust and creativity

I had a freakout moment recently.

It wasn’t because I’m pregnant, which is a fair reason to have an emotional moment at any given time. It also wasn’t about the manuscript I revised and started querying this spring, a story I ADORE and long to work on with a real editorial team and bring to real readers.

I freaked out because of the rumors that 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk may leave for another NFL team after the Super Bowl loss that closed the 2023-24 season.

As I scrolled articles that were basically patched-together social media posts and conjecture, my wise husband told me, “That’s John Lynch’s job. Don’t listen to all the rumors during the offseason — just pay attention after he figures it out and tells everyone what’s going on.”

John Lynch, for those of you who do not let football affect your emotional state, is the general manager of the San Francisco 49ers, which means that he is the person making deals with and trades for the players that the team needs. Much of his work happens during the offseason, when he negotiates contracts to put together the strongest team possible. Worrying about whether a key player is unhappy enough to want to be traded to a different team before the next season is literally his job.

His job, not mine. (I’m a homemaker and writer, and negotiating million-dollar contracts is SO far above my paygrade, y’all.) Once my husband reminded me of this fact, I (mostly) stopped worrying about whether we’ll see No. 11 on the field next season and accepted that it’s someone else’s job to take care of it. It’s not in my control, so the best thing I can do is trust that Lynch can handle things.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been working on querying my novel. When I was writing this story I love, I was the one in charge of this world I wanted to create. I was the one who could track down out-of-print memoirs and read them cover-to-cover to start my research. I was the one watching hours of behind-the-scenes footage that devoted fans — bless them! — have put on YouTube over the years. I was the one buying irreplaceable paraphernalia with fascinating-to-me data on eBay so I could get the exact dates in my fictional world as close to the real thing as possible. I was the one waking up at 5 a.m. to write, over and over and over.

That was my calling, as a writer. But now I’m sending my novel’s concept out to literary agents, and stressing about whether or not one of them loves it enough to want to represent me isn’t my job. I can’t control the responses I get. I can’t worry my way into the equation of right idea + right agent + right time = book deal. I can follow the book industry and notice that, hey, fantasy seems to be the big thing selling right now, and my novel isn’t fantasy, so that might make my path a little harder. But deciding book trends isn’t in my job description. All I can do is keep writing and trust that eventually, someone whose actual job involves negotiating book deals will share my excitement about the world I’ve created.

Of course, I still worry. I worry about our growing baby. I worry about this story I love and whether it will ever reach readers. And I worry about never seeing another “ladybug catch” moment from Aiyuk in a 49ers uniform. But mostly, I try to remember that somewhere, somehow, John Lynch is taking care of it.

What’s been inspiring me lately:

The Deeper Well title track — I’m not the biggest Kacey Musgraves fan, but when she said, “I'm gettin' rid of the habits that I feel/Are real good at wastin' my time,” I felt that.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhorn — I’m not a big historical fiction fan either, but my book club chose this layered, intimate yet epic narrative based on a real midwife’s experiences in the late 1700s for our March book, and it pulled me in. At first, I was worried that it was only a murder mystery, but it quickly becomes so much more.

I Am All In with Scott Patterson podcast — I’m not sure why it took me so long to listen to Luke Danes revisiting Gilmore Girls, but now I’m glad I have so many episodes to listen to. Patterson’s insights into the show could only come from someone who was not only there but also loves it as much as we do.