What they don’t tell you about writing

This post is about the bad things, or at least the sad things, that many writers don’t ever talk about. No, I’m not maudlin at the moment, but being an author isn’t all sunshine and rainbow (or blood and guts, depending on what you write).

-It doesn’t stop being a fight.

You think it’s a fight to get words done and get submissions out and get an editors attention? This fight doesn’t magically stop when you’re published, it just shifts. Before you fight to get words in, but after that sale you might have contract, which legally binds you into delivering the next book on a set schedule. Yeah, lots of publishers are understanding, but writing isn’t about stolen snatches of time anymore, it’s about a second (or third) job. And you might be getting read now, but that also means everyone and their mother has the right to judge your books (and often they think they have the right to judge your life too, and many authors can tell you about the completely off base hate mail they’ve received because of a comment on a board, or a blog, Twitter, or just something from their book, or worse something someone told them about the book.) There’s also the Lost effect, where your book or range of work has wowed readers so much that they come to expect the utterly mind blowing from you, and eventually almost nothing you can do is as good as the “good old days” when your audience was experiencing your work for the first time. That’s not even getting into things like trying to promo, and watching your sales numbers.

-It gets lonelier the more successful you get.

It’s a really sad fact, but when you’re a newbie you can waste tons of time on message boards and blogs and writing sites, in crit groups and writing fan letters. You can openly talk about your insecurities and your small victories, your irritations and disappointments. Then you sell something and all of a sudden you’re an author, and a few things happen. (Oh, they will happen. In varying degrees, but they’ll happen.)

First, you’ll run into people who now want your time, your opinion and your help. Most will be nice about it. Some will be asshats and just demand it, often because they bought your book and think that means you owe them. But almost all had very little to no time for you, if they even knew you at all, before your big break (or little break).

Second, you’ll run into people who were friendly/your friend before. But if you aren’t at the same place in your career as them, or you are focused on meeting contracts or other obligations, you’ll become known as an elitist, too good to hang out with them anymore. Most will just let you go with some sadness (and believe me, you get a little sad too, when you don’t have the time to decompress and talk/vent). Some, however, will get angry at you, or bitter at your position (because success is relative, one book does not a career make). They might go so far as to demand something from you for supporting you and being your friend for so long, or they might get upset and furious because you aren’t submitting to the same places as them, and aren’t after the same kind of career as them. Unfortunately I’ve seen this be much worse in the small press and epresses, where there can be a strong attitude of loyalty, to the point of silliness, and you can be accused of all manner of things if you don’t submit solely to the small presses, blindly support every person you know who opens their own magazine. The truth is, some projects are meant for the small press. And some are meant for the large press. But in some heads loyalty doesn’t allow for that.

Third, you’ll run into people who don’t care. Which can be refreshing. Unless they don’t care because you’re not Dan Brown, so why should they give a damn about you.

Fourth, you’ll run into people who don’t see you as a person, but as a name who can give them a short cut. You’ll never be a person to these people, just a challenge and then either a conquest or a failure.

Fifth, you’ll run into fans (may the gods love them). They won’t always be fans of your work (Hi crazy “The Anita Blake books were written about me” lady!) but most will love just sharing their passion and knowledge with you. A few though will go too far. These are the “I’ve got a story idea you should write” (which I’ve already gotten a lot of and I’m only a baby writer), the “On page 46 you did this but what you should have done…” people, and the people who subsequently expect all your future work to be exactly like the book they fell in love with you over.

Some days you’ll long for the time when you were only trying to get editors to read your work, and those editors, at least, were professional to deal with.

- Working from home sucks ass.

Yeah, I can sleep in. Yeah I can write in my pajamas. But I also sit down to write and am interrupted by someone needing a ride, or a kiddo fight that needs to be broken up, a friend who has to be somewhere five minutes ago and needs me to watch their kid for a few hours until the other partner gets off work, the “I’m not going to make it in time, can you pick my kid up from school” person, the “why haven’t you blogged today” person, or the plumber, or the cable company or just some jerk teasing your dog outside. Jobs that you have to get up and go to are for a set time, and you know you’re supposed to be working during that time. Jobs at home become “Oh she’s just playing on the computer” or “She’s just reading and I’m bored, I’ll chat for a bit”. (By the way my career entails writing and reviewing, and my backlog pretty much means that even if I’m reading a book by an author I love I’m also reading it for review, and there are a dozen more waiting in line behind it. Which means reading IS still work, and DOES still need to get done, just like everything else on my to do list.)

In short, when you work from home you’re the one that’s always called upon to drop everything for other shit (true, it’s sometimes other important shit), and because the other people have set schedules and you don’t both other people and you yourself will say “Oh you can just work later tonight” or “while the kids are at school tomorrow”. Except the interruptions DON’T end, and you are just as likely to get asked to put off writing tomorrow during school time as you were today.

-You can’t be yourself anymore, you have to be “[Name] Professional Author” now.

As you get more of a following you will find yourself under more criticism for everything you do. Before when something angered you, you could make a vague reference about it to online friends, but now everyone and your mother are your Facebook friends, and not only will the person in question know you’re referring to them, but half a dozen other people will think you’re referring to them and send you mails about it.

Even if you’re just complaining in general about something (low paying markets, classic mash up novels, whatever) someone will think you are talking about them and react in kind. So you find yourself needing to be online, to have a presence and interact with established and potential readers, but you also find yourself completely incapable of actually being yourself anymore. You censor yourself, so as not to offend anyone. Then you get mad because you can’t speak your mind anymore, and because none of these people are really your friends if you can’t be yourself around them. And you want to choke on this teeth-baring sense of shut the fuck up and be nice to EVERYONE, when they are completely open to ripping your work apart, and making assumptions about your life based on what you chose to write about. Or you just pull back and stop interacting, at which point you’re elitist and disloyal to the fans who put you where you are.

- You forget why you started this.

Then you get wrapped up in all the things above, all the disappointments and frustrations and the natures of people. And you forget that this isn’t about the fan reaction. This isn’t about winning an award. This isn’t even about getting your next contract. You write because you love to. You love the words, the spinning of a plot, the slow reveal of characters. But all that get buried in publishing. It gets buried in your sales numbers, and dealing with people and you forget why you’re doing it, outside of the contracts, and the fan demand and the money.

So let me remind you; you’re doing it for the stories. For the process of putting words together and making them beautiful. You’re doing it for the nagging characters in your head that wouldn’t exist if you didn’t give them a voice. For the part of you that wants to know “What would happen if…” or even “Can I get away with…” You’re doing it for the amazement of how a line becomes a paragraph, becomes a page, becomes a chapter, becomes a book. Of how your own prose can still surprise you and grab you. Your doing it because you love it and you need to remember that, because there are times that all that bad stuff will overwhelm and disappoint you, and you fight back by knowing why you’re there in the first place.