With social media fragmenting, I’m bringing back my old “You Tell Me” Wednesday discussions to try to get good old fashioned blog conversations going. If you’re reading in a feed reader or via email, please click through to the post to leave a public comment and join the discussion!
I’m not sure whether it’s the summer heat, the lengthening wait times in traditional publishing, or some hard-won epiphanies emerging from the pandemic, but I’ve been speaking with fewer and fewer authors who are holding out bestsellerdom as the raison d’etre as a writer.
Instead I find myself engaging with more writers who are writing for themselves no matter where that takes them, even if it means foregoing their previous notions of what’s entailed in literary success.
I thought I’d throw this one to the crowd: Have you found your writerly ambition changing in the past few years? Is there something in the air that’s prizing greater authenticity and shedding notions of material success? Or is it just this darn heat?
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Art: The Life Stages by Caspar David Friedrich
I’m not sure I can say my ambition has changed; I think it’s more my life circumstances have. In 2010 I started NaNoWriMo. I had a story cooking, and the fire was high under it. But I had to quit that time. I was unemployed and taking full credits for a 2-year degree so I could get a new/better job, and couldn’t spare the energy for that and writing.
(BTW, I got the degree, but never 🙁 got the job I was looking for. )
2012 rolled around. I had a job, and time, and energy, so I tried NaNo again, and that story cranked right on through. Made my 50k in the nick of time — despite 2 car accidents (the 2nd totaled it) and a week’s hospital stay.
I’ve used NaNo since to edit the book and work on the — dear gods — FIVE follow ups in the series. Not done, not ready for publishing. But still in the works.
Currently working on a stand-alone book set in a sort-of steampunk world, and this one is the one I want MOST.
Just for an FYI, I am 71 years old. I have been writing stories since I was four, as well as poetry and music. I am internationally know within a historical re-enactment group, the Society for Creative Anachronism, for a song I wrote about what the SCA means to us in the group.
This, just to say that I have never sought “fame.” That what I do, I do for the love of it.
Yes, I’d like to get this book published, for others to enjoy, but I don’t expect fortune or fame but only the fun of writing a good character in a powerful scene. And I have achieved that, many times over.
I write for the writing. It opens my heart, and expands my horizons, and brings me new friends. Sometimes I even have a stand-alone snippet to post on my word press site.
Varina: So many good things in your post. I especially like, “I write for the writing. It opens my heart, and expands my horizons, and brings me new friends.”
I hope you get your book published!
My ambition has for sure changed in the last few years. I couldn’t quit, but I had to let go of the angst. Writing is what I do for fun (and relief and recovery from the day job–all of it), but it’s not fun when I tether it to goals I can’t guarantee on my own.
Definitely changed. It’s lovely to find a home for your fiction and get likes on your posts, but whether that happens in very small or very big places matters a lot less to me now. The important thing is to work on getting better and living up to your own standards.
I grew up in my mother’s independent bookstore and was dead set on traditional publishing. I wanted to see my book on bookstore shelves, plus, Amazon was The Devil. I spent a dozen years rewriting my novel and worked with my dream agent who was at the tip-top of his field. He told me, “I love this book. I couldn’t put it down, it aroused me, it made me cry, I can’t sell it because it doesn’t conform to genre.” I didn’t believe him, because don’t we all know of very successful books that don’t conform to genre? But it was true. One of my central values as a writer is my belief that our stories create the scope for our realities, and our current reality is problematic largely because our stories are not true. All the genre romances in the world still leave us clueless in our marriages. I finally realized that I needed to stop seeking validation from an institution whose values I reject. And I self-published with Amazon.
Adrienne: Right on! ” I needed to stop seeking validation from an institution whose values I reject. And I self-published with Amazon.”
My ambition has pretty much dwindled down to nothing. My advancing age and health issues have drained me of strength and I’m not happy about it. But I keep on doing many of the things I once did, like follow this and a few other forums, so maybe there’s hope.
I still enjoy the act of writing and story telling, but my enthusiasm for the toxic, fragmented world of social media platform building is loosing its luster.
My ambitions have, in fact, grown … which may be a product of age. As I am past what is considered retirement age (but also still teach college and do corporate/nonprofit freelance writing), I am very committed to getting published, etc. (one small success so far). I detailed some of that focus on achieving goals no matter one’s age in several “Ruminations,” including a three-part series about being invited to pitch for Star Trek several decades ago, on my website.
It could be the heat, it could be advancing age. But it’s true: in my early writing career endeavors, my goal, hope, dream and inspiration was to be what my first literary agent called me: an ‘enfant terrible.’
Then, in my middle age years, recognizing I was (finally?) too old to be considered an ‘enfant,’ and having a different agent, once again, who did not consider me in the least bit ‘terrible,’ I aspired to at least be a ‘well-known,’ widely read, writer.
Now, in my ‘senior’ years, my goal is essentially what it’s always been – some publishing ‘success,’ as in being recognized by a top publisher as a potential money maker, and some royalties to add to my retirement savings as part of an income stream.
The fact is, I’ve had a fine career, thanks largely to writing, in journalism, and have recognized I have reached the stage where I no longer am DEPENDENT, financially, on my writing. Which is, at least to me, more librerating than when I was younger and hoping for ‘literary success/recognition,’ because my survival/income isn’t dependent on that success/recognition.
Now, in addition to writing for myself, still hoping for recognition, it isn’t for financial gain, or economic survival, it is for also a potential legacy for my son, who is my designated ‘literary executor.’ And in charge of my copyrights when I shuttle off my mortal coil and or transmigrate to my next adventure.
I’ve known modest success. I’ve also known a number of early recognized, very succesful writers, who have continued to publish, continued to have agents and publishers who believe they can make money off of the writer’s efforts, but who have not since achieved the recognition, or success, of their earlier efforts.
In fact, I still feel a tinge of foreboding for those younger writers whose works are widely praised, as in journalism, where the question on everyone’s mind isn’t ‘what did you last publish,’ but ‘what have you done lately?’
Not HAVING to write, for income, or success, or recognition, puts me back exactly where I was in my 20s, when my mentor and friend Barry Holstun Lopez sent me a post card from Alaska where he was fishing for grayling and writing ‘Arctic Dreams’ – “Now is the time to write with impugnity.” I didn’t even know what the word meant when he sent it. But I have come to recognize the power of the sentence is in letting writers know BEFORE they achieve ‘success’ is the time where they can work on their craft, or write what they want, before those whose primary concern is ‘market’ get their hands involved.
When you publish with a major publisher – when a major publisher (of which there are fewer and fewer) decides to ‘take a chance’ on you – your ‘success’ affects the jobs and incomes of a whole lot of people you may never meet, especially when the publisher belongs to a media conglomerate.
Look at Barnes & Noble, which used to be THE indicator and arbiter of ‘literary taste’ in the US.
NO ONE but me now really depends on my literary ‘success,’ or ‘failure,’ or even output.
Barry was, of course, right.
I look forward to finally retiring from ‘my day job,’ and being able to just ‘write with impugnity’ again.
Great question. Yes to your findings:
“. . . I find myself engaging with more writers who are writing for themselves . . .”
My goal, since 2003, has been to encourage writers, especially people who want to write but think they can’t. The older I get, the more I am inspired to keep doing what I’ve been doing. Posting inspiration to Just Write!
Your question led to an idea for a blog post. Thank YOU for the inspiration!