There's been a lot of talk around the kidlitosphere lately about keeping your dream alive when all around you, as in this business of writing, seems to be working against you.
Some people are afraid to post their success stories because they don't want to make other people feel bad. (Which brings to mind that great Eleanor Roosevelt quote, "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.")
Some people are afraid to whine about anything, especially after having sold a book or two or more because they are afraid that people won't think they are grateful for the success they have already achieved. (I would probably put myself in the second category.)
Some writers attribute their success to everything from having a cat sleep on a manuscript, always mailing manuscripts from the same post office and kissing the envelope before you drop it in the big blue box. Sometimes it is the act of getting an agent, finding the right agent, attending the right conference, having a great critique group, not listening to their critique group, writing every day, writing in many genres, writing only one thing, writing teachers and classes and degrees designed solely around writing for children, supportive spouses, understanding children and pets who love us even after we've been rejected.
Some days for some writers, being a success means getting a contract, finally seeing a book on the shelves in the bookstores with their name on it. Other days, for the same writer, it might mean being able to write ten pages on a new novel that isn't even under contract. (Hmm. I'm in the second category here as well. I'm beginning to sense a trend.)
And for all the many ways of achieving success there is a different definition of success for that writer at that particular time in their writing life.
But being a success is evolutionary process, not a final destination. It is good to remember this. Not easy, but good.
And it is a uniquely individual process. Success for a young writer, say in their 20s or 30s might be different for a writer in their 50s or 60s. I am a different writer now than I was in my 20s. And my version or perhaps vision of success has changed over the years. In some ways I am more realistic, which is actually rather sad because I thought I looked good with those stars in my eyes and the rose-colored glasses. In other ways I still remain a Pollyanna, true to the idea that a good story will find a home, that hard work will be rewarded, and that while nice folks might not always finish first, they will always finish.
So I challenge you to think about what success means to you. Spend a little time today to actually write it out, the whole vision of what being a success would mean to you. How do you define it? How would you recognize it? What does it mean, to you, to be a success? Not in how you measure up to anyone else in or out of the business. It doesn't matter if your younger sister/older brother/best friend is suddenly the most powerful person ever at her ad agency and they wonder why you persist in playing around with this writing thing. It doesn't matter if your mother/father/next door neighbor has bought and sold more companies than you can remember and has their picture on the cover of some fancy business magazine. It doesn't matter.
I'll say it again, slowly so you can hear me.
It
just
doesn't
matter.
What does matter is that you have a dream. You have a dream and you are doing something, anything in any way that you can to pursue. If you get up in the morning and you remember your dream of being a writer and at the end of the day you've done just one thing in pursuit of that dream, well that qualifies as success to me.
No, it doesn't replace seeing your book on the shelves at a bookstore. It doesn't change the fact that it was great aunt Martha who called to tell you about her bunions instead of your agent calling to tell you your book has just sold. It doesn't make it any easier to give your kid money for the book fair knowing your book isn't going to be there, may never be there.
But it's a start. A word after a word after a word is tremendous power.
And you can't sell what you never write.
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Things to Do
Quotes
"We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little." Anne Lamott
"Love the writing, love the writing, love the writing...the rest will follow."Jane Yolen
"The whole thing is, you’ve got to make them care about somebody." Frank Capra
"As writers, we must be willing to feel our sadness, our anger, our terror, so we can reach in and find our sweet vulnerability that is just sitting there waiting for us to come back home." Nancy Slonim Aronie
"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours!" Richard Bach
"Yet somehow, we write; and most of the time, we like what we write. The dark place seems less dark when we get there. It was only the journey that was fearful." Susan Shaughnessy
"You must want to enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price of disappointment and discouragement while you are learning. Like any other artist you must learn your craft -- then you can add all the genius you like." Phyllis A. Whitney
"Writers write about what obsesses them. You draw those cards. I lost my mother when I was 14. My daughter died at the age of 6. I lost my faith as a Catholic. When I'm writing, the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is." Anne Rice
"I write in terror. I have to talk myself into bravery with every sentence, sometimes every syllable." Cynthia Ozick
"There have been societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories." Ursula K. LeGuin
"Your first job is to get your own story straight." Natalie Goldberg
"Only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking." Naomi Wolf
"Few children learn to read books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word; someone has to show them the way." Orville Prescott
"A writer either speaks to adults and bores kids, or speaks to kids and upsets adults." Ursula K. LeGuin
"I'd always thought you had to be a special person to write. And then I realized you just have to start." Abigail Thomas
"You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need." Jerry Gillies
"But they’re not telling the truth if they don’t teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer." Doris Lessing
"A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote."Yevgeny Yentushenko
"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the
greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't
believe in magic will never find it." Roald Dahl
"I compose sometimes with a pen and notebook, sometimes on the computer; it makes no difference. If all I had was a chisel and a rock I would write on the rock." Ursula Le Guin
"If you want to write from a place of emotional integrity, it is important to learn everything you can about all kinds of emotions, including those that exist in you, that you wish didn't." Elizabeth Berg
"And this is the way a novel gets written, in ignorance, fear, sorrow, madness, and a kind of psychotic happiness as an incubator for the wonders being born." Jack Kerouac
"Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing. They are the ones who discover what is most important and strangest and most pleasurable in themselves, and keep believing in the value of their work, despite the difficulties." Bonnie Friedman
Who am I?I was born on the Cancer/Leo cusp and share a birthday with Ernest Hemingway and Robin Williams. The similarities don't stop there as I can go from depressed to ecstatic without ever passing go. I feel scared most of the time though my friends call me brave and I find it easier to believe in my friends than to believe in my own abilities to make what I want out of my life.
Who am I? A wife, a mother, a daughter, and even, gulp, a grandmother.
Who am I? A writer who never gets tired of playing with words, even when the words are hard to find. A writer of books for children and articles for grown-ups and many things in-between.
Who am I? A motivational speaker, writing instructor, workshop leader and full-time follower of dreams.
Who am I? Read and find out.
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Comments
I am torn between raising my goals and lowering my expectations.
Sometimes I think success for me is just having the time to even THINK about writing....having the time to actually sit down and write out a paragraph is like....wow...triple whammy!
:)
Thanks for the perspective.....
focusing on the process rather than a 'goal' is huge. because it's never over. you write a book. okay, now you have to get an agent. now you have to find an editor. now you have to revise and revise and again revise. book 2? have you started? marketing plan? are you on it? earning back and royalties and (insert music now...) but i think you get the point. it doesn't end when you sell your book, it's really just the beginning of the adventure. so for me, success is being part of the process, really enjoying it--not just the writing but the other people you meet, the community behind it, the amazing collaboration between agent/editor etc. etc. and really supporting other people. i support my friends who have 4 book, half-million dollar deals as much as i support my friends who haven't sold a book. i don't get into the jealous game. we are all in this boat together. i say "yay" when they're happy, and "i'm sorry" when they are sad. it's all a process, like you said, an individual process and everyone's is unique.
success, for me, is realizing I am right where I'm supposed to be in this journey, just trying to hang on tight and commit to the wild ride...
Check with me next month.
No. Seriously, that is the philosophy I have most of the time. It's what works. If I start stressing about the future or the past, I can't get anything accomplished. I truly believe in the whole meant to be, right place at right time bit.
After that baby comes we so have to get together in person.
Some ones book or CD or art exhibit notes may say "Even though "so-and-so" never had a book published or only had one national CD released, this person's hard work and daily determination to do what he loved while managing all the other tasks at hand inspired me...."
I could be quite OK w/ being that person who inspires. As I said, you all do that for me!
Edited at 2008-05-05 06:13 pm (UTC)
I think it is wonderful that reached the point of writing what you want to write in just a few years. It took me closer to 20 to figure that out and I don't want to think about where I might be had I learned that lesson sooner. LOL
As for the fewer sales, perhaps you are at a time of great learning and the sales will follow.
To everything you beautifully and wisely said.
Giving up what other people think is so important and yet, so hard to do. I know I'm not there yet. Sigh.
That's what I'm trying to focus on. Everything else seems impossibly far off right now.
Edited at 2008-05-05 09:03 pm (UTC)
This is a lovely reminder of what's what, Susan. Thanks...
There are writers I know who haven't had their big break yet, about whom I am always thinking, "It's just a matter of time for her. She's got the goods."
I have a little note in my office that says, "It's all about the writing." In many ways, the writing is its own reward, is more important than all the external trimmings. Yes, I want to be published, because I want people to read what I write, but I would keep writing anyway. Strangely, the more I have taken this attitude, the more I have had success in the worldly sense. But there are just so many highs and lows, so many unexpected delights and disappointments, that I can't let myself get thrown around by them. I'll stay here in the center with my writing, and keep working hard, and let the chips fall where they may.
Thanks for your message!
You have always come across as a well-grounded person. I admire that. I let myself get thrown around by way too many things so it is always easier to try to help someone else not do the same thing than it is to change my own thinking.
But I am trying. Trying to remember to take joy. To remember what it is like before I ever sold a single word.