Can you handle the long haul?

[Laer Carroll]

Quick success is very very rare. In any field of endeavor.

It DOES happen. So beginners study those cases obsessively. Hoping that they will find the secret ingredient, the magic method, the coming trend.

Careful studies of those cases have come to the conclusion that often the sudden success comes along at exactly the moment there was a fertile environment for it. An environment which was not there the year before. Nor will be there the year after.

Those successes are "perfect storms" which happen when a dozen or more rare and innocuous conditions happen. They combine to create something much greater than the sum of their parts, an audience hungry for exactly the artwork available at exactly the right moment.

Usually if we look closely at the lives of successful authors we see a familiar pattern. Familiar because we have gone through it and are going through it ourselves.

S/he was telling stories in kindergarten and illustrating them with crayon stick figures. In middle school s/he and her friends got together and speculated endlessly: What if Pippi Long-Stocking had this adventure? Suppose there was a sixth Power Ranger with these powers? Suppose Spock did this?

What if Darcy had favored Jane and Bingley had favored Elizabeth? What if Dr. Watson was actually the great detective and let Sherlock Holmes take all the credit?

In high school and college s/he wrote endless fanfic. S/he took writing classes and wrote terrible stories with flashes of competence and even brilliance. S/he self-published several mediocre books ignored by almost every one.

I just discovered a new singer I've become crazy about. When I read her biography on Amazon I discovered that same familiar pattern. She'd been learning and playing the piano since childhood, making up and singing her own songs. She played every venue she could from childhood through teen and young adult years: birthday parties, junior and senior high school, bar and bat mitzvahs, dingy night clubs. She self-published her first and second album, the first when she was a teenager.

Can you do the same as those other successes? Can you write and write and write for years, failing and failing again, slowly getting better? Can you begin to finish stuff, begin to put it before the public in whatever way you can? Can you endure the small sales most beginning writers earn and keep on trying?

Can you handle the long haul?

[Igor]

The answer is yes I can

I also have an encouraging side story for those who believe in hard work and persisting at what they love.

I started my tech site in 2006, with nothing in mind but fun. I recall a day in the summer of 2008, where I had some 300 people visiting my site a day, that was a revolution for me.

Today? The daily count is around 30,000.

What did I do to "grab" more people? Nothing I haven't been doing before. Keep having fun, consistently writing material with quality and results in mind, and over time, people got to appreciate the technical advice and more flocked to get to read it.

At no point was I tempted to try any quick sales/marketing methods that would supposedly boost my rank/visits. I turned down literally hundreds of business offers, because they all promised instant return, which doesn't work in real life.

In regard to my fantasy writing, my tech site experience has taught me that it's about having fun with your passion. Not to be focused on success. If you succeed, great, if not, still great, at least you're having the best fun you can have, and that's writing (books)!

So I will be judging myself and my book work 5 years, 10 years down the road. Just grab the integral of your experiences in life in the past decade and you can project quite accurately how you will bear in whatever you choose to do, as a life project.

I don't consider years prior to any big success in life a failure. It's like calling 4 years of university a failure, because you're not earning anything. But in the long run, it will pay off.

The same here. Writing 10 books that might not succeed cannot be a failure if you had fun. If you measure success in money, then you might as well be a mercenary somewhere.

The long haul at something you don't like? That's torture. Quit now.
The long haul doing your favorite things? Sounds like fun.

Igor

[Steven L Jordan]

Between your two posts, I see a lot of common elements here. One I didn't see: Suppose that child, telling stories since they were young, was ignored, their stories discouraged and languished; but they wrote anyway? Were their stories bad, or were they simply not found by the right audience?

I've written for years, and at the beginning when I self-published, I had modest success; but it quickly dried up, and I haven't been able to recapture it. I finally decided to take a hiatus from writing in order to work on getting sales up. That was two years ago.

When I started writing, it was to build a secondary income; so, for me, it is about money. If I want to do something for free, I'd sooner volunteer with the Red Cross--my efforts would benefit people a lot more than a few SF novels. I honestly haven't decided on whether I'll write anything new, if I can't get sales up. I also haven't decided on how long I'll keep working on it without success, before I decide to give it up and visit my local Red Cross office.

Of course, I have two story ideas just sitting around in the meantime, developed but not actually started...

[Laer Carroll]

Perhaps the best advice about the writing biz I came across was this, voiced most recently by Neil Gaiman. Here's the complete video and the text versions of his commencement address at The University of the Arts earlier this year.

"I decided that I would do my best ... not to write books just for the money. If you didn't get the money, then you didn't have anything. If I did work I was proud of, and I didn't get the money, at least I'd have the work."

The joy of the work has to be our strongest motivator. Whatever other motivators we may have. Only it can sustain us for the long haul.

And if you don't have it (or have lost it), you must either get it (back). Or find another job that gives you satisfaction.

[tmso]

Of course, I have two story ideas just sitting around in the meantime, developed but not actually started...

Maybe you should start them? They say the best a writer can do is simply keep writing. Right?

To answer the original question, I hope so, but we will see.

[MrBF1V3]

I suspect I'll still write long after I've given up on the whole getting published thing. It doesn't hurt when I get nice reviews like the one for a short story I have on smashwords. I suppose I should use it for advertizing, but maybe not. Sometimes a nice review is just a nice review. I will read it and be happy.

For the question, I can handle the long haul when you're talking about writing--but selling, that's another story. It gets old quick. Can I stand another round of "This is what publishers really want. If you just do this, this and this you'll be published before you know it..."? "You know, if you use more adverbs, or adjectives, or conjunctions, they will love your story." (yeah, right.) Maybe later, but not today.

I still have my day job.

B5

[SilentDan]

1. There was a Sixth Ranger - the green one (originally). TvTropes has a trope called The Sixth Ranger. Just saying.

2. I put my Distinction-winning start-of-a-book up on a forum (not this one) hoping to have a continuous thread going where I could add to it over time. I didn't get that, but I got something much better (more or less): a request to submit it and the rest of what I had to a publisher. What I did was put work, of a certain quality or higher, up online for anyone to see. And someone saw it and contacted me. It was VERY unexpected, too. New publishers will go hunting for new fiction. And the stars align and all that

3. As for longevity, well, I've been writing since I was seven, writing Power Rangers and Voltron-esque cartoony stuff back before fan fiction had a name. I'm now 26 and a qualified writer, as in, I have a degree and will be getting the parchment in the mail within a week, most likely. If you want to write and sell well, you probably need to do the time to make the rhyme to earn the dime. Unless you're the writer of Twilight or 50 Shades, obviously, which is proof anyone can make it big, and not have to be a good writer either! (but Twilight is already becoming Deader Than Disco)
Obviously, serious writers want to be remembered by history in a positive light. Or maybe negative, but thought-provoking. Or something. The point is, they don't churn out garbage or have a one-hit wonder (made of crap being optional). They tell stories because they have that kind of obsession. And eventually it pays off. Just not the next day, or the day after that.

Patience and perseverance are important to them.

[Steven L Jordan]

Maybe you should start them? They say the best a writer can do is simply keep writing. Right?

Sorry, but right now, I just don't have the heart to write a story that no one's going to read, nor to put in hundreds of hours on work I won't get paid for.

[Cirias]

This is a really interesting thread. I've tried and failed for almost 12 years to even finish a novel, let alone publish one. During that time I've honed my skills and my knowledge of the publishing industry and fantasy in general. I've also learned that things don't just happen, you have to do something to make them happen. When I finish this novel that I'm working on right now (and I will finish this one, 100% guaranteed) I think I'll have the patience and realistic approach that's needed to have agents/publishers scrutinize and reject my work (and hopefully accept). Just having a finished story that I can show to family and friends and say: 'Look, this is my book. I wrote this!' is enough satisfaction for me. I am and will always be a writer, no matter if I'm published or not. I love writing and it's as much a part of me as anything else.

[goldhawk]

Sorry, but right now, I just don't have the heart to write a story that no one's going to read, nor to put in hundreds of hours on work I won't get paid for.

Look at it this way: writer Dean Wesley Smith plans to write one novel a month. Giving him time for vacation, that's 10 novels a year. For a career from age 20 to 65, that's 450 novels. Even if you're wildly successful, can you write that many novels? Yes, you better be prepared for the long haul (or get another hobby that's not so stressful).

[Steven L Jordan]

Look at it this way: writer Dean Wesley Smith plans to write one novel a month. Giving him time for vacation, that's 10 novels a year. For a career from age 20 to 65, that's 450 novels. Even if you're wildly successful, can you write that many novels? Yes, you better be prepared for the long haul (or get another hobby that's not so stressful).

Not sure how this applies to me: Dean Wesley Smith is getting paid for his work, so he has a reason to produce; I'm not in that situation.

I wonder: Would Smith produce that much if he wasn't getting paid?

Would you?

[goldhawk]

I wonder: Would Smith produce that much if he wasn't getting paid?

Yes, read his column.

[kmtolan]

Sorry, but right now, I just don't have the heart to write a story that no one's going to read, nor to put in hundreds of hours on work I won't get paid for.

No one's gonna read squat if you don't write it. If it's all about the money, and nothing more, then there's a good chance you're in the wrong field anyway. It takes passion to breathe life into a story worth reading. Discipline to learn the basic mechanics. Drive to get the thing done, and no small amount of confidence to send it in to an editor. The things that make life interesting, eh?

Pick up that keyboard, soldier.

Kerry

[Steven L Jordan]

No one's gonna read squat if you don't write it. If it's all about the money, and nothing more, then there's a good chance you're in the wrong field anyway. It takes passion to breathe life into a story worth reading. Discipline to learn the basic mechanics. Drive to get the thing done, and no small amount of confidence to send it in to an editor. The things that make life interesting, eh?

Pick up that keyboard, soldier.

Kerry

I've self-published over a dozen novels (ten are still available now) since 2006. I've applied my discipline, drive and passion, and shown enough confidence to publish without an editor. And 5 of those self-published novels have earned 4-5 star reviews. They are good, sell-able novels... that stopped selling.

So I'm not really looking for someone to tell me to "suck it up." I've been sucking it up, doing the work and taking the blows. And I think that at this point, I have a perfectly good reason to concentrate on sales of the books already written, before I write any more.

(Also, I'd like to point out--to everyone, since this has been said by many posters before--that it's not helpful to say things like "If it's money you want, find another hobby." I'm not looking to pay off my house, I'm just looking for supplementary income from writing, one of the few things I happen to be good at. It amazes me sometimes how many people actively discourage that, as if there's something immoral or insane about trying to make money from art. It just comes off as condescending.)

[Steven L Jordan]

Yes, read his column.

I skimmed his blog, but somehow I missed the part about doing all that work if he wasn't being paid for it... can you direct me?

(I saw a lot of tip jars, though.)