Desperado
November 30th, 2006 by Kathleen Bolton
Tess Gerritsen has a good post ponging about the blogosphere about writers and desperation. It is worth the time to read the entire dealio HERE.
The post was sparked by a discussion about self publishing, and I guess it stirred up a hornet’s nest in e-pub circles, because she felt compelled to write this clarification:
“What makes a new writer today think he should be immune to that desperation I felt [before selling her first novel]? What makes him think this is SUPPOSED to be easy? What makes him think his very first book is going to get published — or deserves to get published?
“Here’s the truth. I wrote three books that didn’t sell. And then I sold my fourth — to Harlequin. I have a good friend who wrote seven — SEVEN! — manuscripts that didn’t sell. Think of her desperation, her hunger, to be published. It had to be there, driving her, or she would have just given up. But she just kept going and wrote manuscript #8.
And it sold.”
Her point is, this endeavor ain’t for sissies.
If you’ve been writing a few months, years, decades, without selling, you come to the point in your life where one day, you’re staring into the abyss. The heart of darkness. You wonder if this is worth all the backpain and mooning about plot while driving and late nights/early mornings spent writing instead of sleeping. Then the doubts creep in. What if the work never sells?
Well?
At this juncture, you probably want to read some soothing words to the effect that if you keep at it, success will happen. But the cruel truth is that the road to publication is littered with more corpses than contracts.
Gerritsen ends her post thusly: “If you really want to be a published novelist, you’ll stick with it. You won’t say “I’ll give it a year, maybe two.” You’ll say “I’ll keep at it, I’ll keep improving my craft, year after year. Even if it never happens.”
“Because it may never happen. That’s the tough reality.”
Yowch.
I read stories every day about someone who decides one day they want to write, and they dutifully write the novel and voila! they get pubbed. It’s more rare that I read stories of authors who labored for 10-plus years with nothing to show for it. But I love those stories. It tells me that there’s something more driving the process than writing for publication.
Desperation? Yep. And I heapin’ helpin’ of determination. That’s what keeps me trucking.
Great post! Thanks for pointing me to Tess’ blog, which I have somehow missed to this point. Really enjoyed your comments. Keep up the good work!
Kristen
www.inkthinker.blogspot.com
I blogged about Tess’s post a few days ago, too. If you haven’t seen it yet, below is a true story of dedication and determination!!
http://www.annetteblair.com/writing_journey.htm
This sort of relates to my blog post today. I had become too focused on the whole “getting published, making money” part of writing to actually focus on editing my novel. That is NOT what this writing thing is about - it may be part of it, but it’s definitely not the be all and end all.
Thanks for this post, Kath.
Thanks Joely, I loved Annette’s post. I’m going to read it again…it really made my day.
I think it’s important to remember to enjoy the process of writing for its own sake.
I got published *relatively* easily. There was plenty of blood on my first manuscript, mind you, but it did sell pretty quickly. But now I’m facing a difficult subgenre leap and I’ve found that putting too much emphasis on that next contract is NOT helpful.
On thing that surprised me during NaNoWriMo was the number of participants I “met” who say they are writing for fun, some just publishing their stories to blogs or sharing with friends. I don’t have that mindset–I always have a goal of publishing–but there’s something to be learned from the idea of writing for sheer creative pleasure.