I’ve been reading a lot of posts lately counseling people not to write or try to get published. For the most part, they are written by smart people in the industry who know of which they speak. Normally I don’t let posts get to me. These are getting to me. I’ve been considering nuking my blog for a while now. I’ve been hit with a “what’s the point of it all” malaise lately. I am usually pretty good about talking myself out of those moods, saying things like, “Write for yourself and no one else,” “You never know where this could lead,” and “What can it hurt to try?” All of those little voices sound like bullshit at the moment.
When I was a kid I could get lost in a book completely. My mother would call my name five times before I’d answer; I was so absorbed in the world the words created. Someone who could do that with their words? Well they must be magicians. Small gods. That’s what authors were (and some still are) to me. I don’t get all that star-struck. I am not much interested in People magazine and the latest celebrity doings. If a movie star passed me on the street incognito I probably wouldn’t notice. But an author I admire? Well I get all tongue-tied and nervous. I blush and sputter. I don’t call myself a writer, but I write. I have tried to write since I was a child. I would make little books out of cardboard and notepaper stapled together and cover them with wrapping paper. In them I’d write little-girl stories about unicorns and fairies. These were my first “getting published” dreams.
When we moved into this house my husband was absolutely overwhelmed by the trailer-load of books I’d amassed over the years. It was going to be a nightmare to box them and haul them all. Somehow they all got here. Somehow I keep bringing in more. I can’t imagine a house without books, truthfully. Several walls of my childhood home were devoted to bookshelves. Floor to ceiling books. Some people have none at all, and I’m not talking about those who can’t afford to buy them. There are people out there who are not interested in books. It shocked me when I met some of these people. Being uninterested in reading seems to me like being uninterested in breathing.
I have had all kinds of writing teachers over the years. Some were amazing and some were terrible. There seemed to be no in-between for me. Either you were great or completely incompetent. I think this was because I felt so strongly about the subject matter, far more passionately than I ever felt about Geometry or Physics. Writing is all I’ve ever really wanted to do. There have been many other things I’ve tried to do with varying degrees of success and varying degrees of caring. Writing is the only thing I’ve held to my heart as sacred. It’s the only thing I’ve ever really given a fuck about.
One writing teacher, “Careers in Writing” was the course, brought in sections of the classified ads (ah- actual print classifieds- how quaint now) to have us search for “your dream writing job.” Naturally the exercise was meant to bring about wide-eyed realization of the Realities of the World. Oh Teach! I never knew! You mean I CAN’T get some nice employer to pay me 50 grand a year to write (what will probably never be) the next Catcher in the Rye and give me full health benefits, 401K and four weeks paid vacation?! My eyes were rolling to the back of my head at this patronizing little exercise. I could barely bring myself to do it. Why does every writing teacher or professional think they are the first person to impart the great tough-love wisdom that Writing is Hard and You Will Never Make a Living? Get in line, asshole, you are far from the first one to pop my reality cherry. Plus- this guy was teaching a “Careers in Writing” course! He was supposed to be teaching how you CAN make a living writing. If I wanted a “Careers in Suffering” course I would have signed up for that. Thanks.
Of course when I first started really dreaming of a writing career they were pie-in-the-sky fantasies of winning the Pulitzer and having Michiko Kakutani go into wordgasms over me in the New York Times. I’ve always known those fantasies were just that…fantasies. But having them gives me something to move towards. Being the best Administrative Assistant I can be is not really dream-fodder for me. It is a job I can do. It is not something I want to be remembered for. It is not something that makes me feel alive.
Every person I’ve ever told about wanting to write and every writing teacher I’ve ever had has told me writing is hard. It is a hard life. Not many people make a living at it. I’ve heard this so much I’ve never even tried to make a living at it. I have hid my desire from most everyone I know. On my resume I put “English major,” though my degree is in poetry. Even that is a liability. People who want to employ you as an administrative assistant don’t understand “English major.” “Why don’t you teach?” they ask. Because I don’t have a degree in education or a license? (Because I’d be a lousy teacher? Because I’d be all “Yeah you can TOTALLY write! It’s EASY!”) An English degree and three bucks will get you a cup of coffee, apparently. I wish I’d got a business degree or gone to a trade school. I’m still paying the student loan off for this albatross of a degree.
I will tell my daughters not to have dreams like these. I will tell them to be dentists or engineers. People always need to be cared for. Bridges always need to be built. These are good things to do with your life and if you train for them, you will very likely be able to do them. Hopefully they will feel an innate desire to be something useful and I won’t need to steer them in any direction. Dreams like mine are for the rich and the lucky. Writing, making art, making music, acting, dancing are all for people more talented and more connected. (God- why do we value creative people so cheaply in this country?) I really want to be cured of wanting to write. I want to be rid of it. It makes me miserable and it makes me miserable not to do it. The worst three years of my life were after my father died and I stopped writing. Stopped playing the piano. Stopped doing much of anything that a life-support machine couldn't have done for me. I think part of me wanted to join my father. I think part of me did. Then I slowly came back and the desire to write came back. I wish it would go again. I wish it wasn’t like needing to breathe. But that’s not exactly true. I didn’t breathe for three years and I didn’t die. Maybe writing is more like having a sex life. You can live without it, but why would you want to?
I wish I could be that practical person who absorbs herself in a practical career that earns her a decent living. I wish that would be enough- I’ve tried. I’ve been an administrative assistant for over ten years now. I manage the office of a bookstore and it is one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. At least I’m surrounded by what I love. But the job is essentially what I’ve always done. It isn’t writing. And there’s an interesting perspective I have now of books as simply products. Books have been de-mystified in many ways. They are like tubes of toothpaste and shirts and boxes of cereal. They are objects to be sold. In a way this is freeing. I could see myself making a shirt. Why can’t I make a book? Not every book is a masterpiece. Not every book has to be. It just has to be useful to some reader. I no longer feel I have to write some great epic. I just want a humble book that someone will read and enjoy. It doesn’t have to be Ms Kakutani. Of course into this mix is thrown all the politics and maze-like difficulties of agents and publishers and marketers and booksellers. Into this is thrown the chaos of the print vs. digital world right now. But are people really going to stop reading? After doing some form of it for almost all of human history? Maybe newspapers and magazines and books will change, but I can’t imagine them disappearing.
And what if there are more writers now? (I don’t know if I even believe this, but let’s say it’s true) Doesn’t that make for more readers? The more interested I became in writing, the more and varied books I amassed and read. You have to read to be a good writer. You also have to write. And to write you have to overcome so many neuroses and blocks and fears. I don’t need you to add to the pile of rocks already on my chest. It’s hard enough to breathe as it is. I know I’ll never be anybody. I know I’ll never make a living this way. I wish I could stop writing. I really really do.
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Emily Holleman
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Comments
Now that you've written this, one of your daughters will probably be a writer!
I've been a writer all my life, beginning at the age of 15, but you can tell from my resume that I've never depended upon writing to provide my full living. I've made money, sometimes lots of money, but if you average the money out over the time it took to earn it, I would have been a minimum wage worker.
There's an artificial distinction between so-called "professional writers" and "amateur writers," with the sole difference being that professional writers make money at it, and amateur writers don't.
I don't find this preoccupation with other kinds of artists. Painters paint because they want to paint. Actors act because they want to act. Musicians play because they want to play. All these artists know that it is the art they are pursuing, not the outcome.
I will speak only for myself here: I write to find out what I think about things. One of the secrets I learned about writing somewhere along the way is to write to yourself as though you were the reader. If it doesn't move you, it's not going to move anyone else either.
Writing is talking to yourself, the right brain conversing with the left, if you believe that kind of nonsense.
Forget the nonsense you find in books like "The 7 Habits..." The one thing I have learned about success is that success finds you; you don't find success. Life is a crap shot. Take your shot and see what happens. Whatever happens, you'll be happier than if you never took the shot.
And, believe me, right here....right here....I am talking to myself again, ramming my own advice down my throat.
Publishing isn't writing. They are two completely different things. Warning people of the difficulty and reality of trying to get published isn't the same as telling people not to write. Some people confuse the two, either in how they frame their warnings about publishing or (on the other end) in how they hear such warnings.
I'd never ever discourage someone from writing, any more than I'd discourage someone from breathing. But I do comment on unrealistic expectations and incorrect facts that I hear about publishing, both here and elsewhere. Non-writers are actually the most confused (I can't tell you how many have told me that POD will solve all my problems) but many actual writers, especially those who haven't spent much time trying to get published, also are often misinformed from sheer lack of experience. I don't think it's cruel to give people basic information.
If someone said they wanted to start a business without ever having run one, no one would find it inappropriate to raise questions about the practical realities and whether the person understood what was involved, knew what it would take and was prepared for the fact that most small businesses fail in the first year. But bringing up the realities of the publishing biz is considered somehow wrong, mostly because it's seen to be too damaging to the fragile egos of writers.
I get the ego part -- I've had mine stomped on enough as a writer. But the reality is that the vast majority of people who succeed in the arts are very resilient people who share a common characteristic: They fail repeatedly and keep going. Persistence is the single most important element. Their egos are strong enough to experience discouragement for many years and keep going. Yes, you also need talent and luck but without persistence, you'll probably still fail.
So again, if anyone can talk you out of writing, you're not a writer. If you are a writer, you'll keep writing and you'll find a way for writing to be satisfying for you, with or without publishing.
It's true, as my sister points out, that publishing is a business, and a bad one right now. That should not stop someone with talent, like you, from writing. My first post was about feeling like crap about the state of the publishing industry, but I'm still writing, because that's what writers do.
Well, and drink. So, check and check for me.
Just re-reading my journals is cool, too.
What I've also learned is that I write to be read, which makes OS such a great place. If I'm not getting paid, at least I have a shot at someone reading me here.
No one knows anything, when it comes to art. There are guidelines and methods and approaches, but no one knows what will actually work until you try it out. And no one knows where the next terrific story will come from.
I don't believe in encouraging people to write if they clearly don't have an aptitude for it, but I don't think anyone can say what another person should do with their time. Also--if people don't try writing, they won't find out whether it's their thing, or if they should try something else.
If someone is adamant, loud, aggressive about wanting others to stop writing--it is undoubtedly because they're frustrated from not getting published or not getting enough attention. But it is up to each writer to tell his/her story, and then see if people respond.
Write, but do it for love, do it for the story itself and NOT with an expectation of getting somewhere or becoming something. Right here, right now is all we have. If you can revel in that, and write, you're golden.
Never stop writing. Especially when you know you have amazing talent writing. We all love your writing.
I'm an administrative assistant, too. About a year and a half ago, I decided to make a few changes in my tasks in order to satisfy the urge to write. When the grant writer was about to go on maternity leave, I asked my boss if I could take a proposal writing workshop at the Donor's Forum -- to help out, of course! Now, I am still an admin. and probably the worst paid grant writer around (my co-worker is back) - but it's gratifying when words that I've written result in badly needed funding for our organization.
I felt like a fool, putting all this time and effort into blogging yet not getting paid for it, so I decided over the summer to get published. Well, it's been six months and I have yet to send out the first query letter.
Ideas come easily to me but it's that last part of the query letter, where you discuss your "platform" and mention your published pieces that gets to me. I've never been published so why would any editor give me a chance when there are so many brilliant out-of-work writers like Maria Stuart out there?
And the magazines that welcome first-time writers are inevitably Christian publications, not a good thing when you're an atheist like me. Oh well, I guess I better start boning up on scripture . . .
I also appreciated the "writers as superstars" bit. Over the summer, Lorraine Sommerfeld (aka WSFTC) personally e-mailed me to thank me for a comment I left on her blog. I hadn't felt that excited since Bill Clinton shook my hand at a campaign rally when I was 14 years old. Imagine a big famous newspaper columnist who's read by millions e-mailing little old me?!?
Have you sent out any query letters or does the whole "lack of experience" bit intimidate you as much as it does me?
Never, ever, ever stop writing.
Have you read "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott. It's good to read when you have writer's block or just the winter blues. (I'm prone to both.)
There are some events coming up at Women & Children First and The Kates Comedy Night is at the end of the month at The Book Cellar. PM me if you want to meet up at one of these events. :)
1. The most important part of writing happens between you and the page: the joy you take in it. Nothing else is really within your control.
2. Persevere. Discipline is important. It sharpens the craft and deepens the art.
3. Educate yourself in the ways of the world, if you want your writing out there in the wider world, by which I mean the apparatus of publishing, agents, submissions, marketing, reviews, new forms of publishing, etc., none of which has anything at all to do with why one writes and will drive you batshit
but it's part of the territory.
Something will be missing if you don't write--both from you and from us.
You have probably read 'Bird by Bird' by Anne Lamott. "Among the pearls she offers is to start small, as their father once advised her 10-year-old brother, who was agonizing over a book report on birds: 'Just take it bird by bird.'" That is from Publisher's Weekly. It seems so hard, but so many authors we know were where you are now. They just kept writing, while others didn't. You may not get rich, but you will know that you did it. I am like you. I feel dead if I don't do it.
I too have an "English" degree. Actually, I have a degree in creative writing. Yes.
I'm approaching 50 at the speed of sound and still get, "why don't you teach?"
Right now I am being strongly encouraged to get a masters degree. It doesn't matter what I get it in what but what gets suggested most(besides the ubiquitous MBA) is Education. If I'm lucky they might suggest "Ed Leadership". I have perused the available programs over and over again and just feel numb until I get back to the "MFA Creative Writing" page. When I tell people that, particularly the people "encouraging" me to get this degree it results in a lot of eye-rolling.
Keep writing. Please. We need good writers to write good books! I don't know what's happened to publishing in the last several years, but I've lost count of the books I've started and almost immediately put down because the writing simply...well sucks! How do books about formulaic, one-dimensional characters who speak stiltled, sit-com dialog get published, let alone become best sellers?
I'm guessing it is because the industry has become overrun with the " smart people in the industry who know of which they speak" who are telling the rest of us not to bother!
That may not be the reality of the situation, and I certainly get no thanks for my trouble, but it's my own way of protecting those I'm around. You know, I wish I would just shut up and never give anyone advice about anything :) that would probably make me alot more easy to be around and loved.
Thank you all so much for your comments - I will try to respond as I can. O'really- I love ya- you're on my faves after all- there was no anger directed at you. I guess I'm just shaking my tiny fist at the sky. Thank you for understanding.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. If you need to write to feel normal, you keep doing it, whether you're published or not, whether you're selling hundreds or thousands, whether your reviews are good or bad. It's a compulsion and an obsession and the way you define yourself and understand the world around you.
In the years since my first book was published ('97), I've seen the changes in the industry. There are fewer works of fiction being published, there are fewer places books are being reviewed, and even established authors are having a hard time placing their novels (it took 2 years for my 3rd book to find a home). That is the reality of things, but yes, we keep writing and looking for magazines and publishing houses that will invite us in. We have to. Those who don't have to do something else eventually.
I'm not sure what it is you write. I'm not sure what you've sent out and what has come back. But I will say this: throughout my writing career, the rejections far exceeded the acceptances. And the places that accepted me did so because they already were invested in the kind of work I was doing. So do your research, and get to know the small publishers and what they are publishing. There is less bullshit involved with them, less bottom-dollar marketing madness. They too are in it for the love of good writing. And they're dying to find someone they can say they discovered.
Marry me. Please.
It is incomprehensible to me, Deborah, having no books. And I had to laugh about one of daughters wanting to write. That would serve me right, huh?
Thank you CK- sister Admin.
Thank you Dorinda and Tracy.
Sagemerlin- thank you for reading and for such a though-out comment. I agree about, "these artists know that it is the art they are pursuing, not the outcome." But I think every one of them would choose not to have a day job if they didn't have to. And it is absolutely true for me too that, "I write to find out what I think about things." I find that often I change my mind about something as I'm writing. Or I realize something I hadn't before beginning to write. This is invaluable to me and part of why I can't stop.
Thank you Sean. And Brian- it's good to see your sunflower. It's pretty gray over here.
Madam- you are right of course and a great deal of my problem is in locating my identity in someone else. I hand the power to define myself as a writer over to other people. People with authority like teachers and editors, and then I feel powerless and rant and rave like a loon. Et voila! Post like today.
silkstone- thank you for reading this- your post on the difficulties of publishing somehow did not make me feel hopeless. It was more - I don't know- I'll have to go back to it. You are right about persistence. It seems more and more to me this is a game of just keeping at it- just keep coming back to the page no matter what. But the whole sending it out into the world and finding the right way to do that? Godalmighty. Thank you for sharing your experience with it. And John Blumenthal and O'really I thank too. I am really railing against the whole way things are done I guess. Or the way that there seems to be no way. It's certainly not any of y'all's fault.
Another thing to keep in mind is that at some point, publishers have to break down and publish SOMEBODY. They sure don't make it easy and they'd hardly admit it at gunpoint, but they need writers. Human beings love to read stories. They love to discover new writers. If this were not true, there would be a hell of a lot of really empty fiction shelves in bookstores and libraries around the world.
I won't quit if YOU won't.
1. You are saving between $10 and $40 a pop for books, because you can do it yourself!
2. There are illiterate teabaggers who are starving in the Republican Party, so you will waste no ability to write well, young lady!
3. Excellence in the arts is a form of sublimination; and sublimination is the only healthy human defense mechanism.
4. They're fulla shit. No one kills an artist faster than another artist or an expert.
Thank you Stellaa and Ablonde
skeletnwmn- It is interesting to go back through my journals- I feel like I have to let some time pass before I can though. And you are right- more than making a living- although that would be nice.
Thank you, Maria, you are right about OS. It has helped me- and in some ways it has sparked this because it has whetted my appetite. I feel addicted to response.
Thank you MissMisk- I admire your writing- thank you for reading. I do try to keep my expectations at a minimum and that is what helps keep me going. Once in awhile I hope for more. It can be problematic.
Thank you sophie, Zolra and Nelly- I am deeply complimented. It's great that you have found a way to get writing into your daily work life. I would like to find a way to do this.
Gwendolyn- thank you- I have read Bird by Bird- it is one of my favorite books about writing- I need to go back to it. I will PM you.
sixty- you are right about all three- it is the third part that wears me out.
Lea- you are right- OS is pretty darn fab. To steal a line from someone else here (can't remember who- sorry) "I hit the publish button and voila! I'm published!" Plus all these great responses are no small thing.
Delia- from my heart- thank you. I know you understand. Your comment made me cry. I'm just so tired lately I guess.
gwhizz- Ah! You open the other can of worms- the MFA. I almost enrolled in an MFA program- full scholarship and everything- then I got knocked up. Sad sad story of a woman who's her own worst enemy maybe? Maybe just fate? Oh well- I'm not sure where to go from here- do I pursue an MFA? I hear things against the programs turning out "cookie cutter writing" maybe this is BS too. Blah. There's no clear path.
Fairly Sure- thank you- your advice to seek out people who believe it can be done is very sound.
Hoo boy, I feel that way every day. Anymore I think I blog just to piss off the person who called me a horrible writer and an example of everything that is wrong in America. Revenge is such a powerful motivator. Just remember, Van Gogh made $72 from his paintings, now they are priceless. Keep writing!
Muse- it is something I should keep at- but I have stopped before because I feel so discouraged sometimes. I'm not sure what I need to fix that- maybe just a kick in the rear.
Ann- thank you- you express just what I fear- that I will train (expensively) for yet another career I will hate because it is not writing. I am glad you have found a way to make it work- that gives me hope.
Steve- that comment made me stupidly happy.
Kicks in the rear are my specialty. I'd be happy to oblige...
I lost a decade but then I had to write again. When a book was finally published I realized that writing is essential, publishing a mixed bag, and for me: inessential. I read a book almost every night. Yeah, I read fast but take away reading and what in life would be a replacement. Death comes to mind. Rated!
As that post shows, I feel your pain, as only someone who's agonized about the same stuff for most of her life can. In my experience, all writers go through what you are feeling. And each one has to find her own way through it. Some people just give up writing, some get bitter and angry, some find outlets for their work (often unpaid and self-published, like here), some persist and persist and persist and actually get paid for their work, although often token amounts that just give the satisfaction of being able to say you are a paid, published writer.
I think there's something fundamentally odd about many of the arts, in that we get focused on the superstars in them and that becomes the only standard of success or even satisfaction. For writers, that's the author of a best-selling book. But that's like only wanting to act if you can be a top box office star, or only wanting to paint if you can see your painting hung in the Met in New York. Having smaller, more realistic goals is just good psychic management. After all, you can always upscale your goals if when you start meeting the smaller ones. Getting published in your local paper or a small new publication someone's started up (whether in print or online) or even getting an article in a newsletter are all ways that writers traditionally get started. Almost all successful writers work their way up from small publication successes to larger ones. (It's just that we don't hear about them until they hit the big time, so we think they started there.) Aiming for more prestigious goals early on can just be setting yourself up for disappointment.
Today there's more opportunity than ever because websites need content. As well as the creative stuff (still hard to get paid for, esp online) there's a lot of paid commercial blogging for companies (if you can adapt and write about, say, the many uses of aluminum foil or whatever it is they want you to describe for them on their company websites).
I know that doesn't sound that appealing but I've made my living doing business writing and it's a way that you can use your talents and generally get paid far better than most people who do "creative" writing. By this point in my life, I have accepted the fact that I'll probably always have to have a "day job" doing something other than the kind of writing I most love to do. (Even if I can get paid for it, it's probably not going to be enough to live on.) And so that writing is like the treat in my day, the reward, not the work.
It may help to think of it that way, rather than expecting it to be the engine driving your life's success or meaning.
I also have an English degree and it is one of the most important things I have ever accomplished. No one can take that away from you or me. It familiarized me with some of the great writers of this world whom otherwise I would not have known. I am also a poet - most poets I know are the antithesis of celebrity and I love that about them (me,us). I know what you mean about it being a liability. I was in my late thirties before I paid off my student loan. But if you have a gift for it (looks like you do), start loving yourself for it. Put a sticky note on your mirror,say a mantra whatever it takes but don't stop writing.
p.s. Stephen King threw his final draft of Carrie into the garbage can. His wife dug it out, the rest is history. Look at J.K. Rowling - from single mother to more money than the Queen.
If you win the lottery, then the above will make sense. But short of that, the publishing business has always been about mass consumption.
We are now in the throes of the "information age," which ironically is dovetailing into an age of declining readership. It might be that there are more writers, but the indisputable truth is there are less and less readers—while the population grows. Reading is hard work. Why not veg out in front of a fun reality show?
You're not the only one who has had a love affair with books. They are powerful. But an intensely lived life trumps all that. The glib write about anything. The patient make good researchers/journalists(!)—and that's about it for being a professional, paid writer.
Oh yes, and if you've got a compelling story to tell, then you're not just a writer—you're a character in a unique reality. I've been betting my life that I can pull that off. Along with a lot of other egomaniacs.