What Do You Want Out of Writing?
I'll go first.
I mentioned in a previous post my experience with DragonCon—and, in a note, the conversation I had with a gentleman in the Westin bar. The Westin bar is where the writers hang out (which I didn’t know until I attended the Intro Writing Track panel—but I don’t have time to complain about DragonCon right now). My experience that evening was…everything you could imagine: a literal gaggle of writers, drifting in and out of multiple conversations, sharing their ideas and their observations—about writing, stories, publishing, the world, and everything else in between.
I discussed opportunities to share my work and the work of my friends. I delved deep into my beliefs about what drives the creative hustle with someone who has actually achieved some measure of success as an indie author (and who, yes, still feels that pressure to hustle). And, perhaps most significantly, I bitched about my experience at the writing panels and the dissonance I had observed within the industry at large.
The gentleman with whom I had this last conversation (whose patience and grace in speaking with me I CANNOT overstate) was also an aspiring novelist—although he was hustling with admirable vigor, far more than I had shown in my own attempts to get published. He was acquainted with Brandon Sanderson himself and had attended a number of workshops on writing; he was clearly much more accustomed to—and comfortable with—being around successful industry professionals than I was. Yet he did something no other writer at DragonCon seemed willing to do: he acknowledged that I had a point, that the dissonance I have described in this blog was real, and that my complaints about it were valid.
Then he issued a subtle challenge: “It all comes down to what you want out of writing.”
Well, fuck.
How To Get Published
Earlier that same day, I had attended a panel about being traditionally published—which did a great deal to fuel my frustrations with the publishing industry. I am not shy in articulating my beliefs that established writers (all writers, really) should dedicate some portion of their energy to empowering writers who are below them on the proverbial ladder; the men on this panel (it was all men) clearly did not share my belief1. In fact, they spent quite a bit of the panel complaining about less successful writers struggling with self-promotion or pitching to them at conventions2.
Nonetheless, some things from this panel did stick out to me. For starters, self-promotion is not optional, if you want to be published. The panel was less concerned with indie authors, but their need to self-promote is self-evident; when you’re your own publisher and agent, you’re also going to need to be your own marketing executive and social media manager. But writers with external agents and publishers are, apparently, not exempt: the publishing industry has been so gutted that a significant share of the burden of promoting their books falls to the authors themselves.
Secondly, the goal of writing is no longer publishing—publishing is a goal in itself. It requires a different skill set and a different body of research—a different hustle, if you will—than merely writing one (or six!) books. One of the panelists came out and said it: if you are not prepared to promote your book, you’re not going to be published. I am not paraphrasing here; he said explicitly that a lack of Internet presence is a valid reason to reject a good manuscript.
Let’s all take a moment to recover from that. A few deep breaths, maybe a cup of tea. If you are a talented writer, and you just need help promoting your work…you will not be published.
Yes, it sucks. I’m sorry.
Finally, I learned from the panel that publishing and promoting is a full-time hustle, even if you have a publisher. Maaaayyybeee you can also have a full-time job (though that was not exactly supported by what I heard)—but you can’t also have a handful of DIY furniture upgrades and a watercolor hobby taking up your time. You can’t take a week off to angst about your readership or have a depressive episode. I don’t know if you can have friends. Before release, upon release, after release—you are spending every spare moment producing and promoting your work.
What I Want Out of Writing: A Journey Through History
I have already summarized, in another previous post, the story of how I became a writer—it was true, but it was far from complete. Nor will this account be particularly complete, as the intricate psychology of an overachieving child with creative tendencies is not exactly the subject of this blog3 (even if it is very much the impetus).
When I stared writing, I did it because I could, and to amuse myself. I wrote poetry to express myself—but I rarely needed prose for that. Occasionally, I would write to work out my thoughts, but those occasions were rare; I tend to refine my ideas more through discussion than through exposition4. Of course, that line became rather blurred when so much of my communication moved online, particularly to Discord, where I was talking to other writers…through writing.
Which brings me to another purpose for my writing: I write to share my thoughts. I have this joke that people don’t become writers because they’re just fantastic communicators irl—and it’s a joke about myself more than anyone else. As I said in my introductory post, it’s about connection. When I wrote reviews for Rotten Tomatoes, when I wrote my first blog—I wanted to share my ideas with other people and see how they were shaped by my audience’s response; for a long time, that has been my entire purpose in writing. I don’t keep a diary. I don’t write for myself. I write to engage, to communicate…to share.
A Lightbulb Flickers On at the Westin Bar
I knew what I wanted from writing when I arrived at the bar that night. Everything I articulated in the previous section—I had already worked that out. I knew that I didn’t need thousands, or even hundreds, of readers; fifty readers who really loved my book and were invested in the world would be enough. I knew I didn’t really care much about cultivating an audience…I just wanted to find my audience. I knew all of that long before I went to DragonCon.
I just thought that publishing my book would be the way to get that.
And then the gentleman prompted me to reflect. And I thought about what I had learned that day, at the Panel of Five Men Moderated by a Woman (I don’t remember the name of the panel, and I don’t care to look it up). I thought about the discussion I had had two days before, when I made a mortal enemy at the intro panel. I thought about the many slings and arrows of querying, and the angry letter I had written to a hypothetical book agent.
I want to write. I love writing. But I also want to paint, and to decorate my house, and to have friends. I want to share my writing and have it be engaged with—but I also want to consume and engage with the ideas of others. I want to find my audience—but I sure as fuck don’t want to waste time trying to convince people who are not my audience that they should follow me just to increase my visibility. Publishing, it seems, involves doing lot of what I don’t want…leaving me less time to pursue the things I do want.
Most of all, I never want to shape my writing to the needs of self-promotion. I originally titled this post, “You Can’t Beat the SEO Machine”, because I thought it would cover more topics under the umbrella of self-promotion. Instead, I’ll mention here what is implied throughout the post: traditional publishing requires writers to be strategic about what they write and how they promote, to capitalize on ever-changing trends in a competitive market. I don’t want that most of all—I want to write authentically—I want to cover topics that interest me, for an audience that is interested. I want readers, not followers.
In many ways, maintaining this ethos leaves my path pretty unclear. I have articulated what I want out of writing, but how do I get it, while not doing the things I don’t want? I don’t know. What I do know is that finding fifty genuine readers feels a lot more achievable than finding an agent.
So that’s the encouragement I offer: if you’re struggling to get published, and you feel physically and emotionally worn-down by the process, maybe ask yourself if being published is really what you want. For some of you, the answer will be yes—and good luck to you! I genuinely hope you find success with that endeavor. But if you can get what you want without being published…maybe there is an easier path.
It all comes down to what you want out of writing.
Or, if they did, they did not consider a panel on getting published an appropriate venue to articulate that.
If I had cared to confront the one who complained most about pitching at conventions, I know exactly what I would have said: “Sir, I am taking time off from my full-time job to be here. This is your job.”
And I did basically post about that already, after I had drafted this. 😁
As in, expository writing.