Organizations, the nature of writing and loneliness

Organizations, the nature of writing and loneliness

There are millions of writers out there. You can barely sign on to the net without tripping over them. They come in all shape sizes, styles, and levels. From “I’ve always wanted to write a book” to “I’m writing a book (for ten years now)” to “Hey, here’s a link to my latest self pub/story in a 4theluv market” to “I got a call from an agent!” and even “I’m running for president of [writers organization] based on fifteen years of pro sales”.

Some days it seems like everyone is a writer. Some days it feels like everyone’s doing better than you.

You feel alone, like no one understands. You feel like you’re fighting to walk up a steep hill with weight dragging behind you and you don’t have a clue on how to fix whatever’s wrong with you and your work so you can finally proceed forward.

You cling desperately to the few bonding moment you have with writers who have been there, particularly if they were there before you and are now past you. But when it comes down to it it’s just you sitting there, with pen and paper, or in front of a computer screen. It’s just you eyeing prose you know will sell, but aren’t sure why you keep getting nos. You’re the one reading editor and agent blogs, sample copies and writing tips. You’re alone when you wonder if your dialog is snappy enough, your plot is intricate enough, your characters are real enough. It’s just you spewing words out, going back and fixing them, sending them out, breath catching every time you go to check your mail. It’s just you wondering if you’ve done enough, if you’ve missed something, if your timing is good enough to hit a trend, or if you’re looking for water in a desert.

And that can be an overwhelming thing. So maybe you join a group online. Or a writers’ organization. You go to a convention. Maybe you desperately talk with everyone you run into, feeling like a fool afterwards, but needing that human connection.

Because everyone may be a writer. But being a writer is largely being alone. A crew of one on a small ship, looking for islands in the vast sea.

Sometimes it’s a vicious cycle. You need other people, because we’re social things. But no one can do it for you. No one has the full information to make the choices. So you reach out, and at least half of the responses you get are no, or “you should do it my way” or “you just must not be good enough”. There’s the occasional “You aren’t worth my time unless you are a professional/published by so and so/win this award”. There’s the organizations that do nothing for you. The crit groups where you make sure to critique everyone’s story, even though it’s not required, but only one person responds to yours. You take time away from family and writing and life in general to better the genre, to make the publishing world better. You put up with people who only want to take, you get lost in the shuffle. People just assume you can do things they’re “too busy” to do.

But you do it anyway, because some days if you aren’t being taken advantage of, you’re just alone. And if you don’t have a deal or something coming out, or that has just come out then you’re alone and a failure.

So writers, it comes down to, do you like yourself? Are you okay with being alone? Because that’s what writing is, being alone. Because no one else can do it for you.