Are you doing well?
The question presents an easy answer:
Yes, I’m doing well. A deep well that I’ve been thrown down.
And the well does run deep for what it’s worth. I’ve been trying at this writing thing for years now. Its satisfaction comes from the act of doing it. Occasionally someone will read a piece you write and find some enjoyment in it.
What I enjoy about writing is observing the transmission. Not for rote, six hundred to one thousand word blogs and articles (which I do professionally), but for long pieces of fiction where an exciting magic trick occurs.
I invent a scenario – some characters and a scene, and I make them real in my head. But wait just a moment…
The oddest thing happens – they start talking to each other. I just so happen to be there recording it. To people that don’t write, this sounds preposterous, an attempt to seem remarkable. I admit, it sounds dubious. But it does happen. It’s not some hippie-dippie mumbo jumbo, not overly artsy fartsy blather about the muse. Honest to whatever deity you hail, you are a conduit.
My first attempts at writing fiction were not this. They were poor imitations of things I’d already read. I still do that when attempting something brand new. The transmission occurs, but the final product is not in my voice yet. I’m merely trying to do my best Neil Gaiman, David Sedaris, or Ann Patchett (among others) impression. I’m trying to reproduce the feeling in my work that I got from reading something of theirs. I believe this is a natural progression for all writers.
Indeed all art is at first an attempt to recapture the feeling I got from seeing other great work – And of course, the feeling after having failed miserably at doing so. But you get up after you trip and do it again, and at some point, someone says, this one’s pretty good, and that feels nice.
I now write for a living. I still haven’t had one of my books published, but I’ve got a steady gig, churning out words related to the esoteric knowledge I’ve been able to capture in my career thus far. I feel lucky. It’s not perfect, but man, do I feel fortunate. I took a bass-ackwards way to get here, and I still don’t believe it sometimes.
It takes as long as it takes
You really have to like doing art if you’re going to try and put it out there. It’s absolutely heartbreaking sometimes. You’re so close to your work, and you learn to love something dearly and watch it get torn to shreds. You adore it but cannot afford to make it precious, and you can’t mistake the art for you as it gets torn apart. A pile of no less than two hundred rejection letters sits in my inbox — All stating in one way or the other that my work is not good enough, not what they’re looking for, or that I am not what they are looking for at the time. I’ve taken all the query, synopsis, and opening pages courses available online. I’ve had my query letter edited, perfected, improved, refined, etc. and it still results in the same thing.
I joked once online in my social media presence about the query courses. I said, “egads, you mean even if I’ve taken all these great courses and mastered my query, I still have to write well?”
It’s true – you do. I’ve seen the workload of some of these agents. It’s astronomical. They’re at the demand of market forces. They want a story that compels them, that they can sell (it’s how they make their living). The good ones are also trying to diversify a market historically set up to prefer guys like me (straight, white, male). This is a good thing. Giving other people the chance to tell their stories is so important. But all of these forces make picking your book, even if it’s amazing, a slim chance unless you fit into the window of what they’re looking for. You’ve only got a slim margin to be seen and get picked.
And we aren’t in a famine market. We should seek to encourage each other, not to push down the successes of others. Keep working – when the writer vending machine claw finds you a la “Toy Story” we will all look up from the trenches of our word processors and exclaim, “The claw has chosen you! Fairwell my friend, may your journey be a successful one.” It’s a message of support, not of envy.
Then we return to our writing — because that’s why we should be doing it. Because we like to tell stories. We may not make it. The claw might not choose us, but we have to be okay with that.
The long way
In high school, I wanted to go to college for film. I was accepted to a few programs based on the haphazard portfolio I made. There were several short stories, shoddily edited VHS movies in which my friends and I did skits, our attempt at in-house special effects, and some basic computer animation works. I was an okay artist, but I did have vision. Unfortunately, things at home were not going so well, and my college funding evaporated. I joined the Army and learned a new path. Even in joining the Army, I pursued a romantic story in my head instead of reality. When you live the deployments (and this was 2003, so I stayed deployed for years at a time), they become different from the ninety-minute foray into danger and adventure that you saw in the movies.
When I started school again after my military stint, I pursued history. Having seen a lot of the world my eyes were opened to different places and cultures. I wanted to know their stories and what made them tick. I thought of history as literature that happened. And through this major, I began reading and writing seriously.
I applied to grad school at the end of my undergraduate degree as a “Writing and Rhetoric” major. I was accepted to a program but ended up entering the workplace instead. Many of the people I was surrounded by, harkening back to my high school days told me that I needed to do something “pragmatic”. They thought that if I was going to pursue a degree centered around art, I should just do the art and forgo the expense. I caved.
There is some truth to this, but I still regret from time to time constantly veering from full commitment because of a pragmatic voice requiring a “serious plan”. Because dreams were for other people, never you. It was fantasy.
So, I began working. And over the next decade, I became the directing manager of the engineering and manufacturing facility that I worked at. I started at the most entry-level hourly position and worked my way to the top. I gained several technical certifications and an MBA along the way. I made a good living.
But I entered a period of turmoil along this path. I was going crazy. I mean it. I was actually going crazy. Through all those years, I still had artistic pursuits. But they were always subsumed, always viewed as cutsie, non-serious side items. I went into a place of personal despair. I felt stuck. My mental troubles bubbled up, things that I had coped with for years. Unfortunately, I hurt those in my circle during this time and scraped close to my bottom. All the traumas I had in my head from childhood and the military and feelings of inadequacy or regret for choices I made turned inward, and I panicked, oftentimes resulting in making manic poor choices. I lashed out and spun. I make no excuses for the things that I did. They happened, and I committed to being better when I came through it.
On the other side of my struggle, I rediscovered who I was and wanted to be. I also cast aside what I did not want to be (including toxic friends and acquaintances). I wanted my relationships to be better—I wanted to be a better dad, husband, and friend. I wanted to be healthier. I tried to regain control of my life while not compromising who I hoped to be.
I began journaling ruthlessly. I created a website and began writing again. I wrote and posted once or twice a week. I shared my work. I started writing for work too. I did this for almost two years. I felt the pain of negative comments and the joy of someone sharing my stuff. Then somewhere in the second year, I began writing a book. It was a science fiction book called “When Piano’s Fall”. It was over two hundred pages. I was so proud to have finished it.
The important thing was that I decided to write and “hired” myself as a professional. I treated it as a job. I put my rear in the seat, and I wrote. I was, by all accounts, a self-professed writer, and it felt good. Just designating myself and taking it seriously was an important step.
When Pianos Fall and discovering community
When I finished the book, I began querying, knowing nothing of querying. I knew nothing of the industry either. I just knew that I loved writing.
I will be the first to admit that “When Pianos Fall” is a horrid book. Seriously, it’s in my drawer. It’s a terrible first-person on-rails dull adventure where I made some nonsense political allegory. The only thing I still like is the world concept (which I won’t get into). Suffice it to say, you’re never going to see it in its current state on a retail shelf.
But the work proved that I COULD write something long and epic and ambitious. I just needed to do more.
And in between forays with editing and writing other short stories, I began learning about the community. I gulp…gulp…went to an author-book event. Something so familiar in the book world and yet so nerve-racking and new to me. Then I attended virtual events and virtual webinars, courses to learn about the community.
I found out about that author book event by finding agents on Twitter. Then I found out through mutual people about one particular popular agent-author. He had just released a book that I picked up and read on release day. It was the first time since discovering new bands in high school that I had dipped into something that wasn’t necessarily advertised through mainstream channels to me (though I wish him all the mainstream success in the world).
At any rate, I randomly glommed onto this guy and his online presence, and I’m so glad I did. I found a person who was kind, thoughtful, and in the know. It seemed he was trying to do the right thing. Through a query critique and webinar, he told me the absolute necessity to read more contemporary works (something evident to people in the community) instead of the old favorite classics that I kept going back to. He also pushed me in a friendly way to let go of problematic authors and artists no matter how good their works were (this was concerning me being a fan in my youth of OSC, and then all of us finding out later how much of an absolute trashbag of a person he is) — So I learned to let go, which wasn’t that hard honestly, because there’s so much more out there that’s also good and made by people that DO deserve your respect.
If you’re reading this and you’re one of my friends, you probably know which agent-author I speak of AND if said agent-author is reading this, you unwittingly gave me a direction in a time where I was clutching at straws, unsure of what to do, but by god trying, really trying to do things the right way. You are an unwitting hero to my cause, whether you know it or not, and I thank you with all my heart.
I also found a community of like-minded writers going through the struggle, and the veil of the myth of “making it” was lifted. Making it means many different things. Many write great published books who are impoverished—many self-publish to great success. Many great writers do neither and haven’t found their niche. Some do hit the right vein and are skyrocketed. Over the years, it’s been wild for me to see this happen, and it feels special to have paid attention to that person’s thoughts, feelings, and works before the world knew them.
The false hope
There’s a fairy tale that writers from outside the business first think a lot of the time. They’re just going to write that first draft of that book, it’s going to be magical, an agent will fall in love with it, and you’ll be set for life. While this CAN happen, it’s probably not going to. Even if your book is destined to be great, it’s not going to be on the first draft. Even if it’s well-edited, there are formatting considerations and choices about the genre, word count, and intended audience that the first-time author probably has no clue about (I know I didn’t). But there are resources, and the best thing you can do is invest your time reading up on these things (and reading as much as you can generally).
I liken this to the battle of the bands fantasy that a big record producer walks by just as your band goes on stage, listens, rings up “the business,” and has a contract rushed over because your sound is just so amazing. It could happen, I guess, but it probably won’t.
The Twitterverse for writers
In this place where I discovered my community (Twitter), I also found a lot of toxicity. Learning to navigate it is interesting (I still am). There are people out there whose goal is to have tons of followers at any cost, so they glom onto a pile of hashtags and trade follows for follows (and quickly unfollow anyone who dare not follow them). Some are genuine and comment and seek interaction.
Many sad people seek to turn their thing into social media fame, screaming, “look at me, look at me.” I’m not judging. I’ve been there. It feels good to have that like or retweet button hit. So they trade in sad stories or empty questions, “what’s your main character’s favorite color?”
This isn’t all of them. Many are doing this for genuine well-intended reasons. But I’m not sure if many traded in their writing ambitions for Twitter ambitions or conflated the two things somehow.
It’s all fine–people will do what they will do. Do what you feel comfortable with, what feels right to you. The best I can advise (having been at it for myself and several businesses at this point) is to be genuine in your interactions. Follow someone if you have an actual interest in what they are sharing. If you share a thought, sit on it for a moment because it’s free game once it’s out there. Unless you are categorically rejecting something terrible (and honestly, not just doing it for social credit), try not to veer into the negative.
Take all this with a grain of salt. I don’t have a big following. But I do have an engaging one. I have people that I regularly interact with that I respect and route for. I’m genuinely interested in what they post, and even then, you have to admit that you can’t keep up with all of them.
Only a few click and read for any article or story that I share (even those with astronomical follower numbers). So don’t beat yourself up if only a few people read your stuff. Put it out there, write more, put it out there. After doing this for a business with lots of followers and paid advertising, I’m here to tell you that unless you’ve already made it and/or have niche renown, barely anyone is reading your stuff, and it’s okay. I pay attention to the bounce rate on my website, which proves that those reading it are ACTUALLY reading it, and that feels good.
The moral is that Twitter is a good tool (social media generally is), but use it pointedly and don’t get too wrapped up in it. I have to remember that I’m a writer and happen to be using Twitter, not a Twitterer who may sometimes write.
Another book and serendipity
I wrote another two books while I was undergoing this process. An exciting thing happened as I took courses, read more, and built my community–I committed harder to writing than ever before. I doubled down. I still had the same pile of reject letters from my latest manuscript queries, but I had begun looking for full-time writing positions. The rest of the world fell apart during that time, so I may as well take my shot.
One of my books has been edited by someone I greatly respect in the writing community. I have accepted another position and am now writing full-time for a company that could use the knowledge I cultivated in the last decade. Several of my pieces (articles and blogs) have gone out into the wild, and although you don’t see my name on them, I’m happy to know that my words did the trick. I’m a full-time writer. It’s not the path that I initially thought of but it is my path. I wanted to be a writer so I wrote, and I’ll continue to do so whether or not I end up on the New York Times bestseller list (though I wouldn’t complain).
The point is to write and then write some more. Then watch your darlings get torn to bits. Fix them or let them go. Then write some more. If you want to write–sit down, write, and finish it. Don’t worry about “making it”. Even if you did “make it”, there’s always another hill to climb.
Love it, do it.
Write write write.
