Mm ‘kay, I didn’t appear in the Sunday linky link, so I’m not going to bother again. And I’m going to close the month with a few words of wisdom, writers on writing, whatever you want to call them. Have a great weekend!
You’re a writer.
Your most valuable asset is, ideally, your writing.
If it’s not, that’s a problem. A problem with you, to be clear, and not a problem with the rest of the world. It rests squarely upon your shoulders.
If your best way to get attention for yourself is to throw shit instead of write a damn good book, you are a troll, not a professional writer.
Your best advertising for yourself as a writer is to write the best book you can write.
Your best advertising for the last book you wrote is the next book.
Your best boost to your career is to be the best version of yourself. Online, in-person, all-around — summon the ideal version of yourself and present that face to the world, to your potential audience. That is how you earn your audience. You don’t build them. Your audience isn’t a fucking chair. They are a group of people who you can, in part, earn as readers and as fans. (I say in part because you can never please everybody, nor should you try.)
Pick any of the seven reasons above – finishing a book, being creative, achieving a flow state, growth through learning, celebrating failure, finding your tribe or bravely showing your vulnerable side – and use it to pull yourself out of your negative state. Find your smile again.
Use this newfound positive state to problem solve.
Look back: find possible reasons why the book has not sold and come up with ways to improve its sales. Or use being happier to look forward: tap into that creativity and productivity from before and write the next book.
Instead of being a sad, rejected loser you are now a courageous and creative author. Yes, it is simply a variation in language, but you are a writer so you know just how powerful words can be.
But how about YOU? What are the things that you have achieved and accomplished? Even if you haven’t published the new project you were hoping to get done, did you at least get started on it? Have you at least made progress on it? That counts, and it puts you THAT MUCH closer to the achievement. And it’s okay to pause and celebrate that.
Too often, we also compare ourselves to others, and often to only those who are more successful than we are, failing to recognize that there are likely more authors “in our shoes” than the giants being celebrated by the larger media. The fact is that there’ll ALWAYS be someone doing better than you. The thing to measure, instead of comparing your own success, your own sales, to someone else’s, is to compare your own achievements today against your achievements in the past.
– Mark Lefebvre (KWL Newsletter)
Every single finished book is a struggle and a triumph and is merely abandoned (the knowledge that it could be better haunts every writer, every time).
But, and here is the good news; if there is no shining ‘after’ to counteract the wasteland of ‘before’, that means all there is is the writing. The daily work. The being a writer. The thinking up stories. The day dreaming. The delicious research. The learning.
That is all there is for any of us and you are invited to join in.So, take a piece of paper. If you prefer your invitation to come from me, consider it extended (with my warm wishes and a free hug if we ever meet in person!).But you can put whatever you like on your paper:
I am an author
I am creative
I am a writer
I write
Whatever resonates with you. Now put that paper somewhere you won’t lose it, but will see it regularly. In your wallet or on your desk or bedside table.
Look. Cats belong in boxes. Stories don’t. Yes, it can be helpful for marketing, and yes, readers have certain expectations in certain genres, but it isn’t one hundred percent necessary. It isn’t a precursor to getting published, or to success. When I was writing Girl, I had to learn to let it go. When someone asked me what I was writing, I started answering, “I don’t know.” It was honest. I wrote the book I wanted to write: it’s historical, and contemporary. It’s both science fiction and fantasy. It has time-travel, but only one jump…so is it reallllllly a time travel book? Does that matter? Not really. I wrote the story I wanted to tell, and it blends genres until I can’t see distinct colors anymore. I’m really glad I didn’t force my book into a box. I love cats, but my book is not a cat.
Barbara G.Tarn - writer 