writing life

Chances are, if you’re a writer–professional, aspiring, tech, vengeful–you don’t need another reason to despair.  The economy stinks, publishing is pretty selective, agents are harder to come by, the ice caps are melting and soon polar bears will be moving down into your neighborhood to do the writing jobs and the herring they work for is at a premium.  Yes, things can be pretty gloomy.

So you don’t really need to read this piece here from an anonymous midlist author expounding on why it can (and frequently does) suck to be an author.  You could compare salaries, you could identify with her envy complex with books by other authors, you could sympathize with her lack of jobs and still feel slightly enraged for her bringing this upon you when you didn’t need it.

And if you read it, you probably will.  I can’t say I was immune to the despair that crept over me.

Being an author is sometimes like being back in high school.

No, not in the sense that there are people waiting to stuff you in lockers.  I’ve never been anything but aggressively honest when I say that there has never been a non-supportive author or peer in this industry.  Everyone remembers what it’s like, everyone remembers how hard it is and everyone wants you to succeed.

Nor in the sense that there are superiors that you privately resent.  Your editors definitely are invested in your success and frequently in you as a person.  And if I ever called my editors Mr. Spanton or Mr. Anders, they’d probably look at me real weird and then maybe push me down a flight of stairs.

Rather, being an author is occasionally like high school in that you instantly become the same insecure, crackly-voiced soothsayer who divines omens in coincidence, conspiracy in misfortune and crisis in the natural passage of time.  Thoughts of “is she prettier than me,” “does he think he’s bigger than me,” “have their pubes come in yet” rather swiftly turns to “does she have foreign-rights deals,” “does he think his twitter followers makes him more important,” “oh my god, they definitely got pubes now.”

I exaggerate.

But not by a lot.

The truth is that writing, especially professional writing, is unnervingly like going through puberty again.  You’re embarking on something that’s entirely new to you.  It’s slightly less sweaty, of course, but frequently as awkward and often difficult to get by.  The chief problem is that, although there’s books, classes and talks on the subject, all of them (including this one) will fall short of what you really need because it’s different for everyone and the only thing you have to compare against is your peers…for whom it’s entirely different.

So, if you’re anything like me, you stress yourself out.  You cringe when you hear other peoples’ good news, no matter how much you might have wished that good news for them.  Your neck tenses up when you look at your manuscript and wonder exactly what it is you’re doing with it.  You panic and run naked in the streets screaming “I’M DOING IT WRONG!  I’M DOING IT WRONG!”

Eventually, you pass out.  You wake up on the floor of your office.  You find your trousers.  You sigh and crawl back up and you start writing again.

Because this is pretty much the only universal truth in writing: if you’re going to, then you will.

This is the sole constant of writing and the most-often underrated aspect.  You will use talent a lot in writing your book, in the initial spark, in the prose, in the narrative and voice.  You will use luck once or twice, in things that are largely out of your hands.  You will use persistence, perseverance and everything else that implies sitting down and doing it even if you don’t feel like it for absolutely everything else.

Because what other people do, what other people experience, what deals they make, what money they get, what followers they have, they’re going through the same stuff you are.  And if they weren’t, it wouldn’t matter.  Your writing moves the way it does.  You can nudge it along, you can try marketing techniques, you can try holding your breath and whistling Dixie if you think it’ll make your moustache grow quicker.  But the only way to succeed at being a writer is to write, no matter what else happens.

Because no one really knows what’s going to happen.  You can look to agents and publishers like they know, and they might have a better idea than you do, but ideas is ideas.  No one knows what will hit next, when it will hit, why it will hit.  No one knows what’s going to spend years writing, only to take off suddenly one day.  No one knows when you’re going to get hair on your body.  Certainly not you.  I wouldn’t advise asking your publishers, either.  They’ll be weirded out.

Has this helped the despair you may feel?  Probably not.  Will it ward against the despair you’ll feel in the future?  I can almost assure you it won’t.  Did this blog post solve all your problems?  Not a chance in hell.

Because, like puberty, it’s not a choice for a writer.  What else are you going to do?  No matter what the others are up to, you’ve still got to write.  Not for the editors, for the money, for the fame.  It’s just something you’re going to do.  Because you’re a writer.

Duh.