One of the great open secrets about this blog is that I struggle to implement much of the advice I dish out in these virtual pages. Whenever an author feels chagrined because they have read certain posts of mine a million times and still fail to put the principles into practice, I can very confidently assure them they are in good company.
Writing is difficult. And life as a writer is difficult. It’s all easier said than done. Most of the time when I’m blogging, I’m articulating principles so I can then hopefully utilize them to improve my own work and writing life.
Today’s post falls very squarely into the zone where I need the advice.
The “if only” game
One of my first semi-viral posts was When should you give up on a project?, which I wrote all the way back in March 2007. (Eighteen years ago?!?!1!! a;sdfkj).
In the post, I talked about the danger of playing the “if only” game as a writer:
The “if only” game goes something like this: “If only” I had an agent I would be happy. Then that inevitably leads to the next step: “if only” I had a publisher I would be happy. “If only” I sold X copies I would be happy. Which leads to “if only” I were a bestseller I would be happy. And so on and so on. Happiness is always just over the horizon.
So difficult to say, so difficult to pull off. When we write something, particularly something as difficult as an entire book, of course we want others to see what we see in it and to be relieved of our financial burdens and the gaps in our self-esteem.
As I’ve gotten older, I have gotten better at the low hanging fruit of blocking out the “if only” game. I don’t pay attention to trends, I can (usually) take feedback like a champ, I cast my book projects to the fates without living and dying based on whether they sell, I focus on channeling myself into my books instead of imitating. I try to enjoy the process rather than needing my happiness to depend on the outcome.
But I still struggle with the nuances. I still find myself craving the validation that comes with successful publication. I find myself deeply frustrated with forces that are nearly entirely outside of my control.
Making yourself happy first is so important to creating something that’s really yours and maximizing meaning. It’s also really difficult to block out all the rest.
Is your path serving you?
What would you create if you had only yourself to please? How would you share it with the world?
Or would you? Are you really doing this because it makes you happy or because you’re wishing it’s going to bring you something with its reception?
It’s so easy to ask those questions in a vacuum, but in the real world, there are, of course, financial considerations to all of this. At the end of the day, we have to survive in a capitalistic society with an inadequate safety net baked in by design, so as to turn us into pliant consumers and workers.
And that goes for our creative outputs too. Unless we have separate financial largesses at our disposal, many of us need (or at minimum badly want) our creative work to spawn a financial return. Which means the outside necessities of successful publication have already been baked into our process. Not to mention, the deep desire to have our society’s esteem.
I’ve managed to create a thriving business that lets me treat the writing side of my life as, more or less, a pure hobby. But, the financial side whispers in my ear, wouldn’t it be nice to just write instead of all the work you’re doing to run a business? What if you could just get your book to the right influential person? What if you wrote something more people would want to read rather than your current idiosyncratic output?
So I try to block out those thoughts. Only for the social status side to start whispering in my other ear.
I’m not sure I ultimately have great wisdom on this one. I know intellectually that the best work flows from artists channeling their singular focus and perspective and focus first on pleasing themselves and creating something they believe in. It’s also not easy to stay in that zone with all the dark gravitational forces in our world as it stands.
So let me turn to you instead. How do you balance making yourself happy as an artist first while living in the real world’s fickle currents and vicissitudes?
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Art: Stående pige ved vinduet by Carl Holsøe
With regards to you struggling to implement into your own writing the advice that you dole out: don’t let that bother you, Nathan, because it is a fact that we teach what we most need to learn.
With regards to my own writing: I do not write for the money because I do not need the money and no headline making advance would make much difference to my life and how I live it. I write because it is a “must” for me and because I am too competitive for my own good and I see being represented by the best and published as “winning” – and win I must.
To progress, the secret is to turn your “shoulds” into your “musts.”
And never forget that we do not get what we want or hope for – we get what we “expect” and I always expect to win.
I love the idea of turning “shoulds” into your “musts.” Do you have any tips about that conversion process?
Turn your “shoulds” into your “musts.”
What do you want?
What do you really, really, really WANT?
When you are on your deathbed with 10 minutes to go, looking back, what will have made your life worthwhile?
What are you prepared to do to get it?
It is so much easier not to do something than to do it:
so much easier not to exercise than to exercise;
so much easier not to diet than to diet;
so much easier not to study than to study;
so much easier not to put the effort in than to put the effort in.
Everyone wants the gym body but they don’t want to do the diet and the exercise.
Everyone wants a better job with more money but they don’t do the things that would make them more desirable to a top employer.
Everyone wants to be loved but they do not do the things that would make them lovable.
It’s up to you; it’s your choice. No one is forcing you to do anything but do you WANT it or don’t you?
Do you WANT it or would you merely quite like it because you think it would be quite nice?
It’s up to you but if you WANT it, no one can do your push-ups for you. The hard work and commitment is yours and yours alone.
Because you are a part of Nathan’s community, I am going to assume that you want to be a writer. A traditionally published writer with an agent.
But do you WANT it or would you merely quite like it?
If you are or have in the past submitted to agents, what was the outcome?
Were they ringing you and begging you to let them represent you?
Were the big 6 publishers offering you money beyond your wildest dreams – the use of a Bentley for the next two years – and use, whenever you want it, of the Chairman’s holiday cottage next to the lake?
Maybe not quite so extravagant but did the agent at least send you a personal reply telling you that you write “really well” but this story is just not quite right for them but please, please, please, send them anything else that you write in the future, should you still be looking for representation – but they doubt that you will be because you write so well and this story is sure to be just right for so many other agents?
If not, you have work to do, massive, massive, massive, work to do.
I cannot speak for America but here in the UK the “average” agent is sent 2,000 submissions per year. From that 2,000 hopeful writers, the “average” agent takes on 1 new writer per year, at the most.
The biggest reason for failure is writers rush to their computers without first learning their craft.
Most submissions are rejected on page one because the basic idea is poor or the writing is sloppy.
Let’s call a spade a spade here because no good ever comes from pretending; agents will tell you the quality of the submissions on the slush pile is dire and that the writers could not write a note for the milkman.
Who do you think they are talking about?
Not YOU because you KNOW how to write?
Are you getting the personal replies from the agents?
Are they ringing you to ask if you have anything else they could look at?
Nathan has told you 500 times how to write a query letter.
Nathan has told you 500 times how to write a first page.
Nathan has just told you that he is not going to look at any more query letters or first pages because to put words into his mouth, he is sick and tired of banging his head against the wall and screaming, “You are not ******* listening to me.”
To be a writer, is that what you WANT?
Or are you just playing at it?
If you’re just playing at it please stop now because you are clogging the system up for those of us that are serious.
But if you really WANT to be a writer:
Turn your “shoulds” into your “musts.”
It is no good scanning material written by Nathan and others like him on the craft of writing and thinking, “Yes, yes, boring, boring, I already know that.”
NO YOU DO NOT.
Read – study – learn – internalise – know better than you know your own name – become a black belt in – become a Grand Master in – the following subjects:
STORYLINE/PITCH – OUTLINE – SYNOPSIS – FIRST PAGE – SETTING – CHARACTERS – POV – PLOT – OPENING – SCENES – ACTION – DIALOGUE – INTERIOR MONOLOGUE – INTERIOR EMOTION – DESCRIPTION – FLASHBACK – NARRATIVE SUMMARY – SHOW DON’T TELL – STYLE – EDITING.
AND THEN WRITE YOUR STORY.
Does swallowing your pride – accepting that you do not know what you are doing – immersing yourself in the craft of writing work?
YES it does.
Jessie Burton wrote a book called The Miniaturist and sent it to 30 agents here in the UK.
23 of them ignored her and 7 sent a standard “Thanks but no thanks.”
She knew that something was wrong.
She invested a year of her life in studying the craft of writing.
Then she re-wrote The Miniaturist.
She sent it out to 6 carefully chosen agents.
1 ignored her and the other 5 offered her representation.
Jessie Burton has now written 7 Best Sellers.
My own writing story is I used to write short stories and comedy articles for a stable of magazines which sold a million copies per month. The internet came along and killed them because similar material was now available for free.
I got on with life and writing was not a part of it.
Time passed – I became settled and secure – I took up writing again. But this time I want to write novels and I was the first to admit that short stories and novels are different animals and I set out to discover the craft.
I thought I had learnt it and I thought I was ready to begin submitting.
But before I did, by pure chance I came across Nathan’s material and I realised that I knew how to build the skeleton of a novel but Nathan was teaching me how to put the meat on the bones.
I put submitting on hold. I am prepared to study and learn again and I am so grateful for the opportunity. I am re-writing my novel and I know I am making it better.
I have never written a single word that did not sell and I do not want to start now.
To help me achieve that I SHOULD turn myself into the best novel writer that it is possible for me to be.
NO, forget that, I MUST turn myself into the best novel writer that it is possible for me to be – or I will regret it for the rest of my life and I do not want to be on my deathbed with regrets for the things that I did not do.
Thanks for taking the time to write this!! Lots of good stuff to chew on.
Hi Nathan, I’ve been reading this blog almost since the beginning. And when you were a literary agent, you “passed” on my query (I still have the email and was thrilled you’d responded to it). As someone who writes and edits for a living (mostly human interest and business features) and facilitates a longtime writers group, I’ve seen the commercial side of the craft, and I’ve balanced that knowledge with the self-publishing side of the industry. Both, as you know, have their advantages and disadvantages. As the years pass, I’m actually grateful for the ease of self-publishing and the creative control I maintain over my BryonySeries. I have a small band of “super fans” and I joke with my team of independent contractors over how wonderful it would be if we had two billion more readers like this one or that one. But do we really want that? I’ve had the pleasure of long book conversations with some of these readers that would be impossible to enjoy on a large scale. If my series became a critical success, I might lose that control and – consequently – the fans that deeply, deeply enjoy what I currently write. As authors, we dream that commercial success means that millions will read and adore our writings. But that isn’t always the case. It just means we’ve sold millions. And many of those readers will move to find other books, as they should, as we would if we were they. Because that’s what readers do. During my early querying days, I watched an interview with an author who found success with the first book and did not find the same success with subsequent books. She talked about how all our focus is getting to the top of the mountain – but that no one talks about the journey back down. And that really resonated and stuck with me. Even if we reach the top (however we define it), we will not stay there. Most of our writing lives will not be on the top. The success of today’s most popular author will soon become yesterday’s news and that is the space where we, as authors, will mostly dwell. So here’s what I tell the other writers in the group. Unless your plan is to pursue writing purely from the commercial side of things, write what you love. If you’re inspired to write it, someone will want to read it. You might only find an audience of five who are enthralled by your works. But those will be five readers who will be so grateful you wrote it. I think that, at the end of the day, we, as writers, want someone else to love what we wrote and to feel the same passion for our story that we feel. I think that’s ultimately success for many writers. I recall the day I spoke to all the English classes at a local high school. I sold just one book to one student. But she was quiet and shy and came up to me with hands clasped whispering, “How can I get your book?” And she left with her purchase, smiling and with her book clasped to her chest. No amount of cash could ever compensate for that moment. And to piggyback off that, if you write what you love, no amount of cash, no amount of readers, will ever, ever top the enjoyment you get from writing that book. I realized that when I finished my prequel, a five-installment novel that took eight years to complete. No money or praise could ever top the amount of pleasure I gained from the hours and hours of research, drafting, editing, etc. When I realized that, I realized I finally grew up as an author. And the other piece of advice I give writers is this: never let your eyes be the last set of eyes on your work before you submit it. Another set of eyes will see what you can never, ever see by yourself. Finally, I really, really enjoyed this blog post (as my long response shows). I loved seeing this very human and vulnerable side of you transparently sharing the very relatable thoughts and fears and hopes inside the minds of so many writers. I’ll be sharing it with other members of WriteOn Joliet. Have a most blessed day!
Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment, which I found very inspiring! I appreciate that you’ve really seized control of your own publishing process in a way that works for you.