…on approaching the ending of another decade.
This morning I found this closing as part of a comment on Dean’s anacronym weblog:
I am John, and I used to be excellent.
Wow. That says so well exactly what I’ve been feeling these last couple of years.
Starting almost a decade ago I made up my mind to take over my life again, time was growing short and I had to dump the negativity and go after what really meant anything to me to do because riding the rut was useless and wasteful of the gifts. So I wrote a book, went to school, pursued what I thought I wanted most of all and had a knack for doing and worked hard. And put a lot of money into it as well, though nowhere near the time and mental dedication. Sadly, nothing came of this new direction in life though meeting some good people and having some great moments cannot be discounted since they would not have been known had I not taken that new path.
Sometimes despite your best intentions there’s a combination of things like timing and past history and attitude that can’t be overcome and that work together to ensure it doesn’t work. We probably each have our time when had we made certain choices it would have brought us what we sought. Most of us are off on timing because we didn’t recognize the moment. Now, we may be too close to our expiration date to be considered useful any more. By others, in the seeking of employment. By ourselves, in putting satisfaction versus effort on what we want. Too, I’m not what I once was though in some ways I am better. In others, memory may be a bit colorized but I can’t help thinking…
I am Susan and I used to be excellent.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
You are Susan and you are excellent. Past history can’t be changed, but truly, it can always be overcome. You are Susan and you are excellent.
Thanks, Lisa, you’re so sweet. I’ve tried the optimistic approach but it hasn’t worked either.
“Sometimes despite your best intentions there’s a combination of things like timing and past history and attitude that can’t be overcome and that work together to ensure it doesn’t work. We probably each have our time when had we made certain choices it would have brought us what we sought. Most of us are off on timing because we didn’t recognize the moment.”
But what would Augustine say? Or Hugh? Your own written characters?
Here’s to a series: the characters come back and speak. Nothing to lose right?
Augustine might say that the time before could have been better spent, yet the experience is what brings us along our journey to that point. But what if Augustine had not recognized the signposts, not made the crucial decisions he made at the turning points? or what if he had earlier discovered his calling? What if he fell deeply in love with his youthful paramour and married her and became a merchant and not a philosopher?
Some would say it’s never too late yet at some point the what-ifs offer answers much different than their first opportunities; now new things influence those choices that take the shine off or add obstacles that make the climb impossibly steep.
It sounds all very negative and self-defeating, I know, but there are times when brutal honesty is a better leader than desire. One can dream of and want something completely without question and dedicate herself to achieving that goal, but she still will never be the Met’s mezzo soprano if she has the voice of a frog.
“One can dream of and want something completely without question and dedicate herself to achieving that goal, but she still will never be the Met’s mezzo soprano if she has the voice of a frog.”
Augustine, Boethius, and Chaucer would say: then stop dreaming and desiring.
And so I have.
“On your feet, soldier!”
Sorry, my husband’s been watching Terminator movies.
Seriously though, Susan, you’re an excellent writer. Writing ability has nothing to do with what you’re feeling. It has to do with there being “no viable market” for fiction. I’m quoting from, and suggest that you read, this blog post by Susan O’Doherty, Ph.D. at Buzz, Balls & Hype: The Doctor Is In, dated Oct. 12, 2007
Then I’ll tell you a story.
. . .
When I started a community college elementary ed math course (a math course designed for people who wanted to be elementary teachers), the first thing the teacher said to us was, “Why do you want to be teachers? There are no teaching jobs.” It was a rather depressing thing to hear on my first day of taking such courses, and it happened to be true at the time, when there were schools closing in some regions due to a reverse-baby boom. His words that day have stayed in my mind for more than thirty years. Even so, it turns out that I would’ve been more likely to make a living as a teacher (about the same as I made as a technical writer, maybe less, maybe more) than I’ve made spending all my free time attempting to sell my fiction for about 20 years. I’ve made zero, after expenses.
I’m not alone, either. Why? Am I a lousy writer? I used to think that must be the reason, so I worked even harder at improving, learning all I could. Then I even tried quitting for a while. But then I got to the point where I’d see books published that I could’ve written just as well. I knew I could. So what was the problem? I couldn’t figure it out. But the Internet changed that, because the more I read of what published fiction writers say on the Internet about their own experiences, the more deeply it sinks in that luck has a lot more to do with it than the industry wants to admit.
WHY DO YOU WANT TO BE A FICTION WRITER? THERE’S NO MONEY IN FICTION. Or very little, so little that we might as well call it zero, the way they say diet soda has zero calories. There’s not enough to count, not enough to make expenses, not enough to make a living, for most people who even get published.
Most people will read those words, written by a writer they’ve never heard of, and think it’s just sour grapes, that I must not be a very good writer. They could do better. It would be different for them. Well I hope it is different for them, but just last month I read an article in Poets & Writers written by an award-winning writer who teaches writing, who’s been trying unsuccessfully to get a novel published for about as long as I’ve been doing this. Zero, zilch. He’s had a few promising nibbles, but no bites. He and I are not alone.
WHY DO YOU WANT TO BE A FICTION WRITER? THERE’S NO MONEY IN FICTION. That should be branded on the forehead of every English teacher, and printed on the cover of every writing magazine and every book section of newspapers that report occasional 6-figure literary advances. The people who get those advances are like lottery winners. They really are, and every beginning writer should be told that as early as possible. Maybe General Mills should print it on kids’ breakfast cereal boxes. The more honest and less egotistical (of self-deluded) of the published writers will readily admit that a big part of their success is dumb luck. They know there are writers out there who are just as good who never get published. They know that if they have a bad sales year, one of those others would take their place in a flash. Yes, there are also a lot of crappy writers, people who write novels on whims, who never got better than a C in English or never figured out what a story is — and it shows on their first page. But even among GOOD writers who’ve honed their craft, it’s rare to find one who makes a living at fiction writing.
The only reason to do it is for yourself, out of your own love of doing it. Then, if lightning strikes, maybe you’ll get some recognition or make a little money at it. But only do it if you love it — whether anyone else loves what you write or not. You’ll be much happier that way. And I was joking about getting on your feet. DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY. And don’t let this crappy business make you feel like a failure. I came across a quote from Susan B. Anthony the other day that I think is true: “Failure is impossible.” Especially if you’re doing what makes you happy. If that’s not fiction writing, then by all means do something else.
End of story.
Oh Barbara, I so appreciate your support and thank you for taking the time here.
I’m not naive about the financial aspects and when I say I want to be published, it’s not for that reason. What I mean by it I think is the validation that someone liked what I wrote and felt others should see it. By bringing the job aspect into this post I think I displayed an invalid picture. It’s just many things are coming together at this point in my life and and I’m trying to put the pieces together.
As far as my writing goes, I’m coming to the realization that I’m just not capable of writing the way I want to, to meet my own standards, established by the reading I’ve been doing.
I don’t want to write a story or book that’s “publishable” but rather something that makes someone catch their breath for a moment. A while ago, there was a phrase in one of my short stories that several in the writers group caught and commented on. That’s what I’d like to do with a story. The reaction to that small group of words made me feel like a writer.
The other element is time. I don’t have the luxury of time any more to spend so much of it in a direction that doesn’t seem to me to be something I can master. I don’t want to do well, I want to excel.
But thank you for your thoughts–they are taken seriously despite my leaning towards moving on. There’s something out there that I’m good at and I need to find out what it is.
This weblog is one of those things that you’re good at: this was the point of my last comment.
Wow. I can’t believe the reaction I’m having to that and need some time to think. But yes, thank you for the honesty.
Your gift for understanding literature makes for a better writer, and greatly motivates Kas and me to complete our works. You and Steve are the kind of readers that thrills a writer’s pulse.
Well I’m getting the feeling that I’m meant to serve a purpose by writing about writing. Maybe that’s why I’ve been editor of three magazines in my past (back when I used to be somebody!) and what my true relationship to writing was meant to be rather than a storyteller myself. Sad. Yet it does fulfill some of my own needs while helping others. I’m glad to hear that Spinning has a value over helping lit students with their essays on the required reading.
I did not intend that comment to be a conclusion on your status as “writer”–especially since I have not read anything beyond your short stories and poetry 🙂
There are many ways unpublished writers occupy themselves until they are published.
No, I understand what you meant, Josh, and I take it as high praise. I’m listening to my own doubts just as I read between the lines of feedback from others. Ultimately I’m going to do what I want whether that involves more learning of writing fiction or whether it leads in a more journalistic direction. Or of course, to knitting and crochet.
Susan, I never thought you just wanted to get rich as a writer, so I hope you don’t think that’s how I took your post. I do think a lot of us read all the hype about six-figure advances — which are like lottery wins or lightning strikes, but are all we see in the news and magazines about writers — but we never see the struggle, which is 99.9% of what fiction writers do, when it comes to attempting to make a living at writing. We tend to let publication or money infiltrate our approach to writing. I know I do! So maybe I was projecting a bit there.
I love all the reaction you’re getting to this post, and I think you make an excellent point about writing about writing as a calling, even if you do continue actual writing of stories. If there’s one really great thing the internet has done, that’s how it’s leveled the playing field. We see writers and other artists of various calibers all posting their work on the web. We see self publishing taking off, and while I think subsidy publishers are just ripping writers off, those who truly self publish without paying anyone to do it for them are still pioneers in this culture of open-source and the idea that every artist is a valid artist, no matter what standards they meet.
It’s as if the world wide web is everyone’s mother pasting even our least artworthy drawings on a big refrigerator, and I see nothing wrong with that. Let the cream rise on its own — I wish we could do that instead of having a rich publisher hand out 50,000 advance copies of one book, guaranteeing bestsellerdom, while a small and poor but worthy publisher can only print 1,000 copies of a masterpiece.
Everyone who can write, who wants to write, should write. That’s my philosophy. I just wish the hype about money didn’t suck so many of us into the idea of writing for money rather than love. I think that spoils it for many of us. It has, to a great degree, for me.
I greatly appreciate the commentary here and one of my purposes of this weblog and entries such as this one is to take advantage of those few dedicated readers in using them as a sounding board.
Sometimes we think we know what we’re feeling but gut conflicts with mind, and the heart just throws another equation into the problem. Feedback is vital, so thank you all.