The question asked to me was: What do you do to keep hope alive while you wait? The insinuation was: While I wait for the reply from a literary agent, or while I wait for the editor of a magazine I'd just sent my story to, or while I wait for my taking-forever novel to be done.
My response:
1. I look around at others who are only their jobs. I remind myself that I don't want to look like that, for they often look miserable.
2. I write for myself. To better understand my world. To better understand me.
3. I don't feel bitter about the success of others because they don't write what I write and I don't write what they write. Each artist and his work are a unique tandem, and so I remind myself that such comparisons are impossible.
4. I don't write because of my dreams. I write towards my dreams.
5. I remind myself that, although agents are not infallible (re: J.K. Rowling), they are also not idiots. They have to take on projects they believe they can sell, period. They have mortgages, too.
6. I write different things. Though my current novel is taking beyond forever, I have finished and sold some short stories. Though only Alice Munro and two or three lucky others can make careers out of selling short stories, the fact remains that I have sold some, and this gives me confidence--which is invaluable, and can't be taught.
7. I think, "Why not me?" Stephen King used to work in a laundry. He lived in a trailer and typed Carrie on a laptop--a busted, old typewriter on his lap. J.K. Rowling was a single mom on welfare with three kids.
8. I remember that it's a business. Dreams don't sell. Good writing does.
9. I always have something to work on next. After I send out a short story, or a query letter, etc., I get busy on the next page of my story and novel. I don't leave myself time to worry about the stuff I just sent out. I'm not J.D. Salinger or Harper Lee anyway: One novel probably won't make a career for me. Best to be working.
10. I write.
What do you do to keep your hope alive? What are you hoping for?
Showing posts with label Harper Lee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harper Lee. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
A Real Achievement
A bit of an eye-opener today: an e-friend of mine wrote to say that I should be congratulated, that a 76,000-word, complete novel is a real achievement. Funny that I'd never, not once, thought of it that way. I've always been so hellbent on being published that the actual completion of the manuscript wasn't a big deal to me. I'd felt, and still do to an extent, that if I didn't get the novel published, I (and it) was a failure. Period. The completion of it was nothing special--though I'd been through a bit of hell to finish it--and the only purpose of its existence was to see it published.
I now see that this was a bad attitude to have toward the art of writing, as well as towards the business in general. First novels don't sell, usually. Unless you're J.D. Salinger, or Harper Lee, or maybe F. Scott Fitzgerald, your first completed manuscript won't ever see the light of day. More importantly, most aspiring writers don't ever finish their first novel-length manuscript. They say they're writing, and they call themselves writers, but they're not writing, and most of these writers never complete anything.
I did. I not only finished what is called a publishable manuscript (even by the agents who've rejected it), but I also wrote a lot more stuff and eventually sold a story to a print magazine. These are achievements--not only the published stuff, but the completed stuff. Novels, stories, poems, essays, etc. Everything a writer finishes is an achievement, and as long as I continue to see it that way, I will finish more pieces, and perhaps sell more. If I only think of my writing as a success if I sell it, than most of the time I will feel like a failure--which I had, especially during an eight-year hiatus from writing at all. (For some reason, I found myself saying that to a roomful of professors and writers, all of whom expressed their condolences to me, and who told me to continue writing, that I was too good to stop for any reason.)
So I say all of this not only for myself, but for every writer who reads this blog. Do not think of your writing solely as potentially published pieces; if you do, and if they don't sell, you'll fall victim to despair like I did. Look at your writing as potentially living and breathing pieces; this way, once you've completed them (and I do mean fully complete, not just a "rough draft" complete), you'll feel as if you've given life to something that had never existed before. You'll feel a sense of accomplishment. This way, also, you won't be waiting around for that piece to sell; you'll feel successful and write (and complete) something else.
I now see that this was a bad attitude to have toward the art of writing, as well as towards the business in general. First novels don't sell, usually. Unless you're J.D. Salinger, or Harper Lee, or maybe F. Scott Fitzgerald, your first completed manuscript won't ever see the light of day. More importantly, most aspiring writers don't ever finish their first novel-length manuscript. They say they're writing, and they call themselves writers, but they're not writing, and most of these writers never complete anything.
I did. I not only finished what is called a publishable manuscript (even by the agents who've rejected it), but I also wrote a lot more stuff and eventually sold a story to a print magazine. These are achievements--not only the published stuff, but the completed stuff. Novels, stories, poems, essays, etc. Everything a writer finishes is an achievement, and as long as I continue to see it that way, I will finish more pieces, and perhaps sell more. If I only think of my writing as a success if I sell it, than most of the time I will feel like a failure--which I had, especially during an eight-year hiatus from writing at all. (For some reason, I found myself saying that to a roomful of professors and writers, all of whom expressed their condolences to me, and who told me to continue writing, that I was too good to stop for any reason.)
So I say all of this not only for myself, but for every writer who reads this blog. Do not think of your writing solely as potentially published pieces; if you do, and if they don't sell, you'll fall victim to despair like I did. Look at your writing as potentially living and breathing pieces; this way, once you've completed them (and I do mean fully complete, not just a "rough draft" complete), you'll feel as if you've given life to something that had never existed before. You'll feel a sense of accomplishment. This way, also, you won't be waiting around for that piece to sell; you'll feel successful and write (and complete) something else.
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