After Monday’s post on the sobering odds involved in the publishing process, I think we can all agree that being a writer is not easy. Particularly when the publishing industry is going through such a tumultuous time.
It’s not easy to pour out 250 pages, it’s not easy finding an agent, it’s not easy finding a publisher, it’s not easy for your book to catch on, and it’s certainly not easy to become the next Stephenie Meyer.
But what’s the hardest part about being a writer?
Giving up the house and horses I loved for the right to write.
Everything is downhill from there.
other than writing itself? the fear of failure and eternal rejection?
The writing comes easy most of the time, for me. The hardest part is finding a mate who understands my need to write, no matter the time of day. This is where I fail on an epic level.
*sigh*
Actually, if truth be told the hardest part about being a writer is to be my age (almost 62)… and to be considering self-publishing.
With the blistering cold, the piling snow, and the screaming winds; the hardest part of being a writer is the utter lack of motivation. And I wish that damned Shelley Duval would stop interrupting me!
The hardest part is never knowing if you’re good enough.
…and we can psychoanalyze that all day and debate about the co-dependency of authors, but in the end, that’s what it all boils down to.
The hardest part of writing? Writing itself. If one can live without doing so, one will do him/herself and the world a favour. And I would be the first to give it up, if I could.
I wonder if we would have answered Nathan’s question differently if he had asked instead, “What’s the hardest part about writing?”
For many, including myself, I make the distinction between writing from being a writer. In other words, there is the action or task of writing, then the label of being “a writer.” When I operate from a mindset of writing–and just focus on the work, the craft, the discipline of that experience, I find that I am free to make mistakes without self-critique, I enjoy the process, I fall in love with my characters, and those two hours I spend every day are the best two hours of “work” I do all day.
But when I slip into my “writer’s” shoes, I find myself worrying about things which are beyond my control. Before, the worry centered around whether or not what I was writing was any good. Then, it was whether or not I’d land an agent. Now, it’s whether or not a publisher will buy my manuscript. The “worry goalpost” keeps moving when I approach this process as a writer. But when I allow myself to simply write, then let go of those things I cannot control, I feel free and open. And very, very happy to be writing.
Writing.
word verification: plude
sounds oddly unpleasant.
The hardest part is…its all hard – there is not an easy aspect anywhere in the process.
Developing a compelling story and execute well is a rarity for sure – so that is difficult. Even great books are rejected multiple times and finding an agent is like a needle in the haystack – so that is difficult. Once an agent is secured he has to deal with an industry in turmoil and certainly there is going to be more emphasis on known quantities then gambling on new authors – so that is difficult. Then finally, once the book sees the light of day…most writers HATE promotion and are not very good with it. Getting a book off the press is easily only ½ the equation, getting people to find it and getting the buzz for others to read it well of course – that is difficult as well.
I get weary reading about narrow markets and how the industry has a cookie-cutter mentality. It all reeks of elitist hooey to me. I think the whole-I’m-not-published-because-the-market/agent/publisher is not interested in uniqueness is inaccurate.
And it boils over into that craft/art, commercial/literary debate. Truthfully, it’s a matter of ‘taste’ whether Twilight is your kind of thing or not. It obviously touches some chord within its core audience that resonates and rings true regardless what an angry nameless book critic or you or I may deem to be craftless.
What kind of arrogance is that? It’s a negative view of art in my opinion. If a work does not resonate within us, then go to a different work and share that.
Aristotle (I THINK it was Aristotle, forgive me if I am wrong in this) once wrote that there are three distinct things to look for when viewing art. What audience is the artist trying to reach? (Teenage girls in Twilight’s case) What tools is he or she employing to get there? (Simple prose that speaks in the language of its audience) And whether he or she is successful in reaching that audience? (Obviously yes!)
Only three constructive elements there, but it sums up good critiquing – and I suppose a way of looking at ourselves in the querying process as well.
Unique and cutting edge and all that are simply not that important unless that is the audience we seek. If my writing is so unique (the argument of the cutting edge literary elitists) that my audience is limited to only those scant few who may share my experiences/IQ/pathological angst/prediliction for antiquated 18th century prosody, then there is little incentive for a publisher/agent to spend their considerable time and resources buying and promoting my book to a very limited market.
It would not make sense. They would lose money. How many people are in that market? What kind of disposable income do they have? Given all the myriad choices available unto them, why in heaven’s name would they plunk down $29.99 for this work as opposed to others?
When you go duck hunting, you go where the ducks are. There is an audience for the Twilight books. It aint me, but so be it, I doubt it is supposed to be. As a writer, it doesn’t mean I aspire to suddenly write teenage vampire romances. But there are some folks who are inspired thusly and are following in those footsteps. There may be an echo market there, but maybe not.
The deciding factor will be whether these new works continue to resonate within that audience or reach different ones. I believe there is an audience for well-written challenging works that could be considered high art. There are some brilliant prose artists out there working in that realm today. Is it harder to sell literary fiction? Perhaps – but perhaps it is because the competition is John Irving and Anne O’Brien Rice and Cormac McCarthy. Not to mention backlists of all the beloved folks who serve as my writing’s genetic ancestors: Frank Norris, Upton Sinclair, and John Steinbeck.
I believe that personally there is resonance in what I write, but I recognize the elements in it that may challenge publication. If that means it is not ever published, so be it. It is not the industry’s fault that I am crafting work that falls outside the lines of what will sell.
And I certainly don’t bemoan any other writer’s ability to have the necessary craft to construct works that tap into the corporal zeitgeist with less lyricality. That is not their fault.
Sorry for rambling, but the constant Twilight bashing irks me. I’m just happy that there is a series of books to pull youth away from their cell phones long enough to read.
Waiting on an agent’s reply. I understand that you and your fellow agents are busy, but we writers get so imaptient! and it’s because you have our little pride and joy that we’re submitting, hoping all the world will see. The waiting game. That’s the hardest part.
What’s the hardest part about being a writer?
Not being a writer…waiting for the “validation” that you actually are one.
The best part? Fellow writers (and unvalidated “nonwriters”) who support and understand you.
Hardest part for me is reading book after book of crappy published authors and wondering if they are really that much better than I am because I usually can’t see it.
*ugh*
I honestly feel, for me, the writing is the easiest part. Writers, in general, have a story playing out in their head constantly. We also think our characters are real. Shh! They are! The hardest part is the editing process and submissions. In all honesty, it’s why I self-published my 2 previous books, focusing on awards and reviews for them. With the 3 I’m currently working on, I’m sucking it up and querying when they are done and polished. Whew- that’s the hard part.
Great blogs, Mr. Bransford.
~K
I love being a writer. No matter how disappointing it is sometimes, it is what I’ve chosen to be. The hardest part of the job for those of us without published books is justifying the label. I’ve published dozens of poems and stories and hundreds of articles, but when a person, often a nonreader, asks me what I do, their response to my answer is almost always this: “What books have you written?” Books with my name on the cover are my holy grail, but not having a book makes me no less a writer, does it?
Being true to myself and what I want to write about and yet still accommodating/placating my editor.
Putting words down.
Forging through the negative wind.
OMG – staying off the effing Internet!!! That's the hardest part.
The second-hardest thing is editing. The first draft for me is pure fun. It's after that the real work begins. >: (
The hardest part?
Almost everything: the uncertainty about whether it’s good enough; whether there’s room or interest in the marketplace.
Marketing; putting my work out there; the dreary tasks of writing letter after letter; the long silences waiting for a reply; dealing with not only rejection; the type of rejection–from “not for me” to “they actually let you near a keyboard?”
Boredom and tedium: there are days when it’s just like my days at law offices and Federal probation; it’s paperwork and constantly fussing over seemingly minor details while knowing (a)will be ignored by some readers and (b) other readers will snap the book shut and go back to waving their Wiis; (for example, a pair of sunglasses has suddenly taken on significance as I near the end of my first draft; I now have to go back to review earlier chapters to make sure they’re introduced earlier; the transcribing of notes; the creation of lists, the tracking down of mundane answers to mundane questions, that when added to everything else, can add up to a whole lot.
One thing that’s not hard: just getting down and doing it; that thankfully, comes easily, even when it’s day when I have not much to say or not saying it poorly.
https://www.redroom.com/articlestory/whatever-mask-he-wore-donald-westlake-1933-2008
The nagging worry that I’m doing this all merely as an exercise in self-indulgence. I love writing, I love the story I’m still trying to perfect, and if I get an agent and get published I’ll love all my next stories just as much. But when I’m deep in the writing, it takes a toll, trying to also keep up with my clients and have a stable, nourishing, engaging home life for my kids. They have to feel the stress no matter how much I try to square off time to focus only on them. At least they loooove leftover spaghetti. Maybe I’ll be fortunate enough to drop the day job some day ….
There’s nothing hard about it. I get chicks, free drugs, and travel in a Cesna filled with Crown Royal. Oh, wait – that’s not me, that’s Axle Rose. Seriously, there’s nothing hard about being a writer, or writing, for that matter. As writers, all of us have the innate ability to put to paper our unique vision of the world we see all around us. What could be hard about that?
If writing was a job, I wouldn’t do it. Probably not, anyway. But as a means for fulfilling some sort of childlike passion to create wonders like the ones I grew up with, I.e. stories like X-MEN and Spider-Man, or the adventures of Lestat, or the horrors of H.P Lovecraft’s monsters; I want to create my own universes.
If there was one thing that was hard about being a writer, it is the fact that – as your blog so suscinctly put it – that most of us on here will not see our projects in print. But sometimes it’s the chase that we enjoy…
Really focusing on a target audience.
The toughest thing about being a writer is going back to writing something I began and stopped writing months earlier. Even though I’m enthused about the project, it’s hard to reclaim the momentum.
Why is it called “word verification” if it’s not a rel word? I mean, what kind of a word is AZZLESS?
Hang on…I think it means “a little, rodent-like creature without a rump.”
Often, the hardest part of being a writer is dealing with other writers.
Studies on creativity show that creative minds flourish when together. I don’t doubt the validity of that statement for a second. Over the years I’ve made some very good friends, both published and unpublished, and while I won’t speak for them, I can say that I’ve benefited greatly from these relationships. I’ve learned things I might never have learned on my own, and I’ve gotten the opportunity to offer support and constructive criticism.
But being a talented writer, or any kind of writer, doesn’t always translate into being a decent human being. For every gem there is the sort of person who says, with a buck-toothed Country Club sneer: “Well. Just about anyone can call himself a writer these days.” Due to insecurity, or perhaps to nastiness, plain and simple, these people like to create hierarchies in which there are “true” and “fake” writers. And in which they, themselves, are always at the top. It’s the same in every art form.
Dealing with these pretentious sorts means having confidence in one’s own work and one’s own process. It means developing a thick skin. It also means recognizing that you’re a writer because you write. Because nothing, not even a lousy economy, can stop you from writing. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never been published, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve never taken a creative writing course at your local community college. True writing is in your blood, and it’s something that nobody can take away from you.
So there.
I think there’s a place that lies between “my writing’s not good enough” and “I’m a good writer”. I write best when I’m in that place. The hardest part about being a writer is trying to stay there.
“In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble” – Alan Perlis, “Epigrams in Programming, #14” –
https://www.cs.yale.edu/quotes.html
Rococo: “artistic style of the early eighteenth century characterized by energy, lightness, delicacy, playfulness, and self-conscious artificiality…”
https://www.copper-beech.com
/glossary.html
***
Just to make myself happy (and collect my thoughts) I threw in the above.
The hardest part about being a writer is making the transition from reality, the workaday world, everyday life, whatever you want to call it, to the world of your novel…there is nothing remotely rococo about my day-to-day life, nothing energetic, light, delicate, playful, or even self-consciously artificial. I think of the Rachel Maddow show (and I love the Rachel Maddow show) – so bright and modern and up-to-the-minute and sharp and funny…Keith Olbermann, Huffington Post…the blare of it all…just divorcing yourself from all that, pulling back from political hypervigilance…that’s the hardest part, feeling like I must pay attention to what’s going on in the world! “A watched pot never boils” – what disaster will strike if I’m NOT PAYING ATTENTION????
Oh well. I checked out Jonathan Lethem – can’t wait to read Fortress of Solitude, see how he handles urban/magic realism combo.
I agree with Catalina. I enjoy the writing process and making my characters come alive. They are my newborn children and what parent doesn’t want the very best for their children. We worry about them, whether they’re good enough, whether they’re strong enough, whether everyone else will love them as much as we do. It’s hard to put them out there and wait, especially knowing there are so many other ‘children’ out there.
And when ‘someone’ doesn’t love them like we do, it’s hard to pick yourself up and put them back out there on the chopping block. (Sigh) But we do.
Check this one out, from Epigrams in Programming:
#39: “Re graphics: A picture is worth 10K words – but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.”
Waiting! And making myself write WHILE I wait.
The most difficult thing about being a writer?
Good Lord, is there anything about it that is NOT difficult?
First, there’s the actual production of words. Not only do you have to fight your inner editor (“Wrong word! It’s not working! You’re incoherent!”) just to put something down on the page, but you’ve got to fight the “real” world for time. You’ve got to work at something else because writing barely covers paper and toner costs, and that demands time energy and concentration. Then there’s your wife and children and friends who demand time and attention or they’ll divorce you, taking you for every cent you’re worth, or maybe they’ll borrow your car and see how long it takes you to notice, or maybe they’ll just turn up the television so loud there’s no way you can think and you’ve just written that same sentence four times in a row.
Or you’ve just come home from work, and shuttling a van full of rowdy kids to and from a soccer game where you had to stand in the rain shouting encouragement to your kid, who’s increasingly embarrassed by your existence, and trying to dodge that fellow-parent with fourteen-cigarette breath who seems to think that having your kids share a field entitles him to share a few confidences that, to be honest, you’d really rather cut off your ears than be forced to hear, and stopping for soft drinks half-way home even though you know you’re going to spend the next three days trying to get coca-cola out of the seat covers, and you get home to discover that your daughter and son have broken your mother-in-law’s favorite lamp while fighting over which song to play on the ipod docking station, and really when you finally get things calmed down to the point where you can think straight, you just can’t bring yourself to stare at the computer for all of the final fifteen minutes you have left in your evening before you drag your silly carcass to bed. And when you do it anyway, the only words you can type are ones that would make an angry sailor crawl to church and give up whiskey because he might as well join the priesthood because he’ll never be able to swear as well as you even if he were to stub his toe every minute of every day for the remainder of his life.
No. Because you’ve also got to face all those people who hear that you’ve been known to write and either their ears perk up in a “Ooh, I’ve always wanted to write,” way or they frown as though they’ve heard that you’ve been known to molest small animals, and the first group is terrible because you’ve got to hear about how great it is that you’ve got time to write and they know they’ve got a book in them but they’re just too busy or they have a great idea and maybe you can write it and you’ll both get rich and split the profits fifty-fifty, or how you must be rich and do you know Stephen King because he’s a writer too and he wrote this one book and I can’t remember the name of it but it was green, and the other group is terrible because apparently you should give up childish dreams like being a writer and start doing something productive with your life like maybe insurance sales because I know a guy who could use some help from a real self-starter, or maybe printing is dead and they can’t understand why you bother to try traditional publishing when iUniverse is out there and they’ve just published their own book which came out two weeks ago and it’s about goat raising on the Prairies, and would you like to buy a copy because there’s a box in their trunk and worst of all are the other writers or would-be writers who have a twelve-hundred page manuscript at home that they’re still working on but they’re almost done and you should have a look because either they’d value your input or maybe you could learn a thing or two from them because their characters are even better than J.K. Rowling’s, who they saw once at a reading from a distance of a quarter-mile because the crowd of kids dressed up in wizard robes was so thick.
Then there are all those articles and pundits and joes-in-the-street like Steve Jobs who insist that reading is dead, that traditional publishing is dead, that God is dead and took author advances with him, and really what’s the point of writing when nobody’s going to read it, and if they do, they won’t pay for it and the only way you’ll ever see your name in print is to go with iUniverse again and they’ve got a box of books in their trunk… Anyway, then you’ve got to convince an agent by means of a 1-page query to take a look at a few pages and pray to God, Fate or Random Chance that something in those pages sets the agent on fire so much that they have to read the whole thing, which stands a miniscule chance of being so completely wonderful and captivating that they don’t mind taking you on for no money either way because they think they might be able to convince Editor Joe, or Frank or maybe even Ted, if Ted’s still got a job, to take a look at some samples, and maybe Ted (if Ted’s company hasn’t been absorbed by a voracious imprint) will be so in love with what you’ve done that he’ll take it to the editorial board, charging in with manuscript held high like some kind of modern day Crusader (only without the armor or weaponry) ready to champion your work until someone points out that the previous seven books about lesbian vampire stewardesses in high-school didn’t earn out their 1-figure advances, at which point he shreds the manuscript and does his best to phrase the word “no,” in a manner that won’t send you into a suicidal depression.
But your book gets published eventually and five thousand copies are printed and four thousand are shipped and three thousand are remaindered and five hundred are packed off to discount stores but the other five hundred find their way into the hands of readers who flip through the pages while suffering insomnia, or lying on a beach or during commercial breaks in American Idol but they get read anyway and the check arrives and you stare at it because you can’t believe its real and now you’re a real published author and it turns out that the check just barely covers your celebratory dinner and if you break it down, you start to cry because you realize you’ve been pouring your heart and soul into an enterprise that has consumed your life and ended up repaying you with a grand total of one dollar and eighteen cents per hour but you’re a writer and that’s what matters because people loved your book but not critics who either ignored it or mentioned that volume six in your eight book series was “a good first effort” and what do they know anyway and it doesn’t matter you’re just hiding in your closet crying because sometimes you do that and would someone please shut the door so you can be miserable in peace but you’re invited to a signing or a conference or to maybe a convention where you’re sure to meet your rabid fans who turn out to be one step away from psychotic stalkers half the time and the other half, have come up to berate you for their choosing to buy this piece of claptrap with your name on it or maybe they’ve come to tell you that you’ve got everything all wrong and there’s no way that your protagonist would wear that purple shirt on Wednesday in Hoboken because that’s the color of Hoboken’s greatest rival’s football team and she’d be run out of town and how could you not know that what kind of writer are you and incidentally, I have a box of books from iUniverse that are much better than yours out in my car and would you care to see how good books are really written?
And so you go home and back to your life of work and soccer games and exhaustion and that’s it because there’s no way you’re ever going to put yourself through that again but wait a minute you’ve got an idea about this character who finds themselves wearing a purple sweater in Hoboken on a Wednesday just before a football game and you’re staring into space while your wife threatens to call the divorce lawyer who’s on speed dial by now and you hardly notice when your best friend takes your car and your kids turn the volume up on the television to cover the sound of another lamp breaking because you’re going downstairs to the computer and the words, which are all wrong are already coming to you and looking back on it you realize that maybe writing isn’t that bad after all and maybe it’s worth it in some non-monetary way because here you go again and you can’t tell yourself it’s because you don’t know what you’re getting into.
And if things don’t work out, there’s always iUniverse.
The transition from magazine journalism to novels. Besides waiting and discipline, for me the hardest is going from being a published journalist/editor with deadlines to the free-flow world of fiction.
The fact-checking and research of a historical novel takes forever cuz I always worry about getting it right. Then you have to worry about the writing: Does it flow? Is it interesting? Different mind-sets, entirely.
Then trying to find an agent when you only have magazine contacts is like starting all over at a new job.
1)Reading the crap on the shelves and wondering how it got there, as some others have said.
2)Trying to figure out what’s wrong with my query when I get no feedback and conflicting models.
Like a dinner party…
Is the mix right? Did the words just talk politely, or did they dance?
Thanks, Ulysses, that was my smile for the day. Much appreciated.
My best, as always,
Bryan Russell
Writing is hard but in a good way. The hardest part is having to divert attention to make that pesky thing called income. Oh, I seem to find queries and synopses hard too. But it doesn’t seem to matter. I sent my agent a query letter the other day, and received a reply, “what are you really trying to say?” followed by, “yes I will read the chapters.”
Finding time– there just aren’t enough hours in the day. . Everything else – smooth sailing. Now pardon me, I have to get my sleep deprived self to my MAC laptop for more revisions. . [sigh]
I’ve read each one of these comments (okay I skimmed some of the long ones) and no one has the same ‘hardest thing’ as me. For me it’s the embarrassment of not knowing everything. I wish I could be all-knowing. “Omniscient” narrator, HA! What a laugh.
For me it’s simply the isolation. I have to make a point to tear myself away from the computer, ignore deadlines,and get out of the house. How fresh and rich will the writing be if the well has run dry? Even though I know intellectually I need a full life to dip into for my storytelling, there’s a part of me that fears that if I don’t stay chained to my computer I won’t catch the next brass ring.
The hardest part is doing it. Finding the time and not checking to see if there’s anything else – maybe the dogs pooped again – that can take you away. The pleasure of reading and/or working with great writers in classes, workshops, readings perks it all back up. And a deep breath and a flurry of cohesive scenes flash and you forget yourself and your need to be perfect, as good, better, good enough and write, a small smile of pure enjoyment in the moment and you can do it again.
Until the edit moments when you need a tweezers to pluck through it and are sure the dogs have pooped abundantly and leave to look for poop.
The hardest thing about being a writer is: rejection, rejection, rejection.
I’m impressed that none of you seem to think it’s a hard thing. What’s your secret?
Writing.
“But what’s the hardest part about being a writer?”
For me, it’s actually finishing the darn manuscript so I can get it out to my critique group (NONE of whom I am related to, and ALL of whom are also aspiring writers). Every time I sit down to work on it, I see something that needs to be fixed. That leads to more and more editing of what little I already have written and less and less of the actual act of WRITING.
The other hard part for me is believing that someone else would be interested in reading my work. I haven’t even tried shopping any of my (very few) short stories around because I don’t think they’re any good. I think that’s the other thing that I have a hard time with…believing I have something to write that someone else might find interesting and worth reading.
The hardest part is waiting to be discovered when you know you could be great.
The hardest part about being a writer????
To me that would be the rejection letters that you may get when you start looking for agents or publishers.
Us writers pour our souls into our work and the best feeling ever is to walk into a book store and see your book on the shelf! But the long journey and the rejections along the way really suck! Somedays you feel like maybe your just not good enough but then realize that it’s what you love to do so you keep trying.
Those rejections really do suck though!
Well, for me it changes, and I identify with most everything that everyone said – me, too!
Right now, though, it’s facing what in me needs to be written. I’ve been writing comedy, but there are other pieces in me that are dark.
I have one story idea that’s asking for attention. It’s about a serial child molester/murderer. Yech! Yech! Double Yech!!! I don’t want to go there, into that mind.
But it is pulling on me. It’s telling me that it needs to be written.
So, right now, I guess the hard part is finding the courage to go where I need to go.
The hardest thing is dealing with literally everyone around you telling you you won’t succeed. They’re just thinking numbers, but when writing is your heart and soul it feels like they’re telling you you’re completely worthless.
Realizing I can’t sing and/or dance, but still want to entertain. Then when the agent part of it all comes, realizing I best learn the song and dance.
I wrote a blog about the pitfalls of working at home as as a freelance writer. While I got to leave my proverbial day job, I encountered a whole new set of woes, including upstate-New York inflicted SAD, a newfound penchant for terrible television (i.e. ‘Wife Swap), and an ill-fated courtship with my mailman, the only single man I met while working at home on a book about the Iraq War. If you would like to read it, my blog is”
http://www.thatsokayididntwantthatjobanyway.blogspot.com
Depsite all of these comments, I wouldn’t trade my writing dream for ANYTHING, even though the sacrifices have been many and the days of despair long. You either have to write or you don’t. And the blessing and the curse of my life is that I MUST.