Contemplating Seppuku
From fantasy author Dan Willis:
I have a confession to make, it’s been three weeks since I did any serious writing. I’m supposed to be finished with my next book right now. Fact is I’m a little less than halfway through. I’d like to blame it on the holidays or the fact that I’m juggling writing, being Mr. Mom, and taking a class in programing. Heck I’d settle for blaming it on my rampant ADD, I’m easy that way.
Truth is, however, that I’m not writing because I’m just not seeing any future in it. The writing industry is changing rapidly right now and even if I got a contract on my last book, who knows if the market will be there when it comes out? Then there’s the whole e-self-publishing route where no one really knows what’s going on but we know that some people are selling millions of books. Quite frankly it sounds like there are better odds playing the lottery. (For the mathematically challenged, playing the lottery is only slightly less risky than throwing your money down the garbage disposer.)
So, for the last three weeks or so, I’ve been kicking an idea around in the back of my head.
What if I just quit?
I mean lets face it, while I have been published four times, I haven’t cracked the level of success where I can actually make a living. I used to be a hotshot computer programmer and, while my skills are very rusty, I can whip them back into shape. Programmers make good money (provided you move out of Utah, which I could do). Heck, I’ve worked in the game industry and have contacts there, maybe it’s time to resurrect that dream.
So what if I quit?
. . . .
I wrote the previous thoughts this morning while my youngest played with her barbie and the sink full of dishes glared at me, meaningfully. I got busy (though I studiously ignored the dishes) and didn’t post it. Then a few minutes ago, while checking my email, I got a newsletter from a professional friend of mine, a writer of great talent, renown, and success. It was his periodic newsletter to friends and aspiring writers and it’s message was simply; “Don’t Quit.” The letter detailed the struggles of top shelf writers like J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, and James Joyce. I have to admit I’d heard most of it before and didn’t really pay much attention. What I needed was the subject.
Don’t quit.
I’m a religious man and I believe God has a plan for everybody. I believe you have to go and find it, and that he’ll lead you to it if you’re listening. I’ve been praying for guidance as I moved through the black labyrinth of the last few weeks. If this isn’t the answer I’ve been looking for, I don’t know what is.
So that’s it then. The wakizashi goes back in the scabbard and I move on.
Link to the rest at Dan’s Blog
Argh. I think this is the problem with the “Self-Publishing Millionaires!!” focus of a lot of the new coverage–it doesn’t make clear that you don’t have to sell a bazillion copies to do fine self-publishing. Willis is in a good position–he’s got an established fan base and probably a lot of stuff sitting on his hard drive that wasn’t of interest to his publisher. Hopefully he will actually “go and find it”–do some real research into self-publishing before giving up on writing altogether.
Maybe it is the spare time that we find in winter that causes us to take such a despairing look at our lives. Your post caught my attention because of the word “seppuku”, a word that I had just used for the first time in a couple of years in a blog post only yesterday. Karl Jung would call this “synchronicity”.
I have been having similar writer’s blues. I am a business developer between businesses who happened to write a novel. It is actually a pretty good book and for the fifty or so people who have read it, it has gotten rave reviews. I have been told that it is life altering. And yet, as writers in the mire of social media, changing publishing paradigms and general market chaos, we are faced with the age-old existential conundrum: if a book falls on the internet and there is no one there to read it, does it still make a difference?
This question has caused me to take a deep look at the future of my own writing.
It is a fairly straight forward premise. Why do you write and are you satisfying your intention? If you are writing for money and you are not making money than you should go out an make money in the most effective way you know how to do it. If you write because you enjoy writing, then you should write when you get enjoyment out of it and stop when it is not enjoyable. If you write to be heard, then the secret is to be heard and not necessarily to make money. You could send your book to large email lists of people for free and some of those people will read it.
Where this gets complicated is when we want to make money with our writing and feel like we have to have both the money and the writing. If you hit the lottery tomorrow, what would you do? Would you write, travel, shop? If money was no object and you could immerse yourself in writing how important would a book contract be? What would you do differently? Being a rich writer doesn’t mean anyone would read your books although it would afford you better marketing options.
I wrote my book for my daughters because I had something to say to them and because I always wanted to write a book. I was in between business projects and, by fluke of fate, had the opportunity to write it. Not being one to do anything in a half-baked fashion, I read up on how indie publishing works and followed the lemming trail off the cliff into blogging and the rest of it.
I have already accomplished what I wanted to do. I wrote the book. I published the book. And, yet, none of my three daughters have read it. (Two have started it.) In the meantime, the focus group that I used to develop the book went wild for it and it gets passed around to small local book clubs and has a tiny but ferocious following. Bonus. I have made $12.39 on about 1,500 hours of work. As a business developer I can tell you this is a nonsensical return.
But in the process, I had the deep privilege of spending a year in nearly total immersion into my thoughts about life, the world and the future. This contemplative time has been invaluable. I write for my blog now just to say what I have to say to all of twenty readers a day. I don’t really care. I have made friends through this whole process and have learned about a new industry, social media marketing, but mostly I have taken the time to sort my thoughts out on a great many things. And I can say that I wrote a pretty darned good book and if you don’t believe me, ask my fifty readers. Ha!
In the end it is a simple matter of connecting the dots. If you want money, do the things that bring in money or figure out how to bring in money from the things you love to do. If you want fame, shoot somebody famous. If you want a voice, stand on the busiest intersection of your town and rant. Where all this gets tricky is when we want it only a certain way regardless of the rotation of the earth. It can be done on your own terms, maybe, but you have to be willing to do what it takes and that is often just not worth it.
All people want to be happy. But by the time we set out the terms and conditions of our happiness that it often makes it highly improbably that we can shape the chaos of the world into the narrow patch of ground that we have defined as the promised land. I want to be a father more than anything in my world. That is because it is a forum by which I can be a living contribution. When I give myself away, I feel like I have been useful and that satisfies me.
I am glad to hear that you put away the wakasashi. While you may have to shovel coal or dig a ditch for money, I would not put away your pen. It is, if you will pardon the pun, mightier than the sword.
Best of luck to you,
D. M. Kenyon
Wow, Dan REALLY needs to read Kris Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith. Hang in there, man!
Contemplating quitting without having done any actual research into self-publishing seems…dramatic.
The guy is just in the mid-novel blues. I always get that way around 1/3rd into a novel. Just wait, around 50k words he’ll be thinking he’s a genius, and around 60k he’ll be wondering whether to quit again.
Almost always happens to me that way.
So true! You hit the wall after the first act and realize you suck. Then at the false climax of the midpoint, you are so awesome. Only to discover a few scenes later that you are a delusional, incompetent hack.
Some of us are just too temperamental to make it as computer programmers. I’m married to one, and he lets me know I suffer enough highs and lows for both of us.
[...] Passive Voice) Share this with your friends:ShareNo related posts. /* RSS or Twitter. Where to Find [...]
I’m of the opinion that real writers write because they have to; they can’t not write. (Parse that sentence if you dare.) If one is honestly considering trashing the whole author thing and could actually follow through, I posit that person is not a real writer. For a real writer, the lack of an audience and/or income connected to the act of writing is beside the point. I also firmly believe that God does not send special messages to writers via newsletters. On all these points I am rigid and unbending.
I dunno… I can tell a lot of stories to myself in my head, and be reasonably content — except that some of them are really cool, and the feedback from friends is awesome. Especially when I write something that breaks their brains. Because I’m evil.
I would always tell myself stories. Getting the occasional reaction from other people is what makes it so cool to share them. Receiving money is certainly a nice reaction! ;D
I know we’d all love to think that we are purely motivated by love of literature or whatever, but you see the flip side of this when you read how much more people are writing now that they’re self-publishing. I don’t think writers are any less suspectible to punishment and reward than anyone else: If every time you write, you get a kick in the head, you’ll stop writing or at least slow way down.
People underestimate the value of quitting.
Every writer needs to stop and contemplate quitting. You need to that dark question “What if I never get published? What if I never make money?” (established writers should add the word “again” to those questions.)
This leads you to consider quitting, and quitting leads you to ask the most important question:
“Then what?”
What would you do if you quit? What would your life be like?
Some people might find that they would actually be happier not writing. Others might just need a break. And others will just think “Hmmmm, if I give up on trying to publish or make money, then I can write what I want….”
You need that release valve, though. Self-publishing gives writers a little more freedom, because the consequences of giving up on the publishing game aren’t so dire.
You’re not free if you’re held hostage by the worst case scenario.
Considering the worst case scenario for a few minutes is not equivalent to dwelling and basing your actions around the “what ifs.” I consider what I should do if my apartment catches on fire, but that doesn’t stop me from cooking dinner.
Personally, I don’t believe quitting the publishing game (self or otherwise) is “the worst case scenario.” A nuclear bomb is the worst case scenario. Seeing everyone you love dismembered by the army of a psychopathic dictator is the worst case scenario. Closing your laptop and going to work from 9-to-5? Not a worst case scenario. As highly as I think of myself as a “real” writer who would simply DIE if my little fantasy worlds were taken away from me, I would begrudgingly deliver pizzas if I couldn’t feed my kids. That’s just the way it goes.
I agree with Camille that you can’t just close your eyes and waltz blindly into a profession without thinking about it. It’s the same with any major life decision; you think about the mortgage before you buy a house, and you weigh the pros and cons of marriage before you book a church. I regularly think about what would happen if I quit writing. I know the answer from experience: my stress levels would skyrocket, I’d gain thirty pounds, and I’d go to sleep every night crying to my SO about the injustices of this cold, cruel world.
To me, living below the poverty line is worth it. Even if I never hit a bestseller list in my life, I’m happier eating ramen every day than I ever was getting pats on the head as a librarian or web developer. Confirming this does liberate me from the guilt and fear of failure.
Actually, you are still free. You can always say no.
I did that a long time ago. I saw that what the traditional publishers were offering for cozy mysteries was unacceptable, and that how they treated cozy mystery writers was downright appalling. They were killing all of my favorite series left and right. All my favorite authors were in terrible straights.
So I stepped out of the pool.
I kept writing. I wrote screenplays, I wrote short fiction. I wrote for me.
Quitting that traditional publishing game was the best thing that ever happened to my writing life. While I would have liked to self-publish for fun, it was not an option ten years ago.
Then two years ago, I thought I might go for it again, but thank god I discovered indie publishing before I had to hold my nose and jump in.
The thing we have to remember for an author like Dan, is that he is in despair because he thinks he’s in the same situation I was in. He will have to give up to see that he has options, I suspect.
You have to learn to give up, sometimes, to see what your options really are.
I’m with Mary. My first thought was–don’t quit! Indie publishing is totally viable for him. And then I wondered how many writers like him there are out there–published but struggling with the present state of traditional publishing. He’s exactly the person Kris Rusch has been talking to and blogging for. Don’t despair! There’s a whole new world out there.
His site doesn’t allow comments (even though it appears to, a common malady with mac.com) so I’ll repeat what I’ve said before, here and elsewhere:
In traditional publishing, your actual market isn’t readers or even bookstores. It’s editors. There are a hundred or so of them, they are inundated by hopeful sellers, they all live in each others’ pockets and have similar tastes and preferences, and nowadays they’re running scared that they can’t sell enough to their market, which is distributors and “big box” bookstores. The upside of that is, or used to be, that if they bought at all they paid a goodish chunk of money for the product.
In independent publishing, your actual market is the billion or so people in the world who speak English, or at least the sizable subset of that billion who buy and read books. One downside is that you have to find a way to offer it to them — but, then, you had to find a way to offer your work to editors; the techniques are different, but are they really harder? Another downside is that you get paid in dribbles instead of big chunks, but to counteract you get the dribbles right away instead of waiting until $BIGCORP thinks it can spare the cash. The real upside, though, is that almost no matter what your story is like, somebody will like it — and you have to get something like four and a half sigma west of strange to get to “one in a million”. If only one in a million English speakers (1) reads books, (2) can find your book, (3) likes it, and (4) buys it, that’s a million sales.
I’ll take those odds. I have, in fact. The evidence is that I’m a good bit farther off the norm than five sigma, but it’s still enough for me to be happy with the checks.
Regards,
Ric
You messed up the math a bit. One millionth of a billion is one thousand.
That said, I concur with your overall point.
[wistfully] I used to be good at math. Now I ought to keep Calculator in an open window; I don’t have enough fingers and toes.
Regards,
Ric
I think you should always ask yourself if what you are doing aligns with your goals and values, i.e. is this the highest and best use of my time and energy? I try to consciously check periodically and ask myself what is most important to me, and do my actions reflect that. To tie it back to books, I was inspired to make this a conscious act when I found out my friend Randy Pausch, of The Last Lecture fame, had been diagnosed with cancer.
I get the David Farland’s Writing Kick newsletter too. It’s pretty damn good.
I also started a website/author community that was designed to have writers give other writers the kind of encouragement that keeps the wakizashi in the scabbard, but it doesn’t seem to get used. THAT will encourage seppuku.
Truth is, we all find inspiration wherever it will reveal itself to us, and those places are probably as unique as our souls.
After looking at Dan’s existing booklist, I think I can understand his dilema. Three Dragonlance tie ins. I don’t mean that to disparge Dan in any way whatsoever, but it’s not something he’ll ever be able to to just take Indie and expect to have many fans follow him. He either has to write more tie ins and endure what I assume are very poor returns from the publisher in a market that’s drying up, or take the plunge and start his writing career new. But hey, if you already have half a book finished, seems like an awkward place to stop.
He doesn’t even need his readers to follow him. Honestly. He just needs to write stuff and put it up. If it’s halfway decent it will find an audience. My (secret) pen name who started indie sells almost as much as I do.
I didn’t mean to be as discouraging as I sounded.. I only meant that I understand the hesitation at such a career decision point.
I was exactly there last September. Then I took Kris and Dean’s workshop. Anyone know Dan personally and can point him that way?
Now I’m in a different place. I don’t want to write my contracted pieces, because I can do so much better indie — so I’m having to make an effort to finish contracts and can’t wait to be free. Only way I can fulfill contracts is to let myself write for myself at night.
Very few people make a significant amount of money writing. You have to love it. If money is the only thing motivating you, it’s silly to pursue it. Better to buy lottery tickets. Why be an unhappy, unsuccessful writer when you might be a successful, happy something-else? Writing isn’t the only creative outlet. I’m glad Mr. Willis heard what he needed to keep himself going, but we need to remember that “quitting” one thing can mean beginning something else. Writers shouldn’t think our chosen obsession needs to be everybody’s.
Nonsense. People do make money writing, and more people than ever now there’s an indie option. Define “significant”. It depends what you write and how fast you write. At 4 books per year I’ve netted around 50k a year for the last several years. PLEASE GO READ DEAN SMITH. What you say sounds like “No one makes money as a teacher. You have to love it.” It’s not reasonable, and it’s allowed publishing houses to exploit writers for years. We are not hobbyists, we’re professionals. Professionals get paid. Of course, yeah, if you want to write a short story a year you won’t make a living, but most working writers write far more than that.
Ahem, being in academia….
It’s true you don’t make money as a teacher, and you do have to love it….
I think both Anne’s and Sarah’s points are well taken. Just as with teaching, writing is something you shouldn’t be doing if you don’t love it. If your expectations are out of line, you have to get off the merry-go-round and examine what you really want.
At the same time, making a living at writing takes time — but it isn’t like winning the lottery. It’s more like investing. It requires a certain, unflappable point of view, and it’s slow and can be hard and frightening… but it’s steady and always pays off in the long run.
And as Sarah said, you have to define “significant”.
If it means dictating your next work to the secretary from the deck of a yacht anchored out at Monaco because the slips are too small for it, then no, not many people, writers or otherwise, get there. If, on the other hand, it means finding the electric bill in the mailbox and being able to open it without cringing in terror, that’s an achievable objective.
Starving in a garret for the sake of Art is one of the most poisonous memes around. For one thing, it allows “artists” to become disconnected from the public, resulting in the pretentious alienation we see in the visual arts. For another, it allows parasites to enforce it and thus skim off the cream, in the same way the Medieval Church lived high on the hog by convincing the peasants that being poor was the way to Heaven.
Writing is both an art and a skill. Produce, sell, and produce more; the more you produce the better your product will be, especially with feedback from selling pointing the way to improvement; as your skills improve, so will your income. Having the Prince to tea may not be in the cards, but enough to eat and keeping the lights on is within your power, and better than that is a perfectly reasonable hope.
Regards,
Ric
This whole back-and-forth need to be tattooed on the foreheads of would-be writers everywhere. There are two equally bad myths being debunked here: 1. Writers Should Starve, and 2. You’ll Make Billions!!!
Both are bullshit, and both are very, very harmful.
Teachers don’t get paid? Dang, I wonder what my sister lives on? I would have sworn there was a regular paycheck involved.
Camille, sorry to be snarky, but while hobby writers send free stuff to friends and family, that’s like saying “My Aunt tutors my kids in math, so why should math teachers get paid?”
Writers get paid by selling their work. A new freeway to the market has just opened, shortcutting the old torturous route will all the tolls, fees and tarrifs. And we’re taking it. More and more of us every day, and we’re reaching out to the discouraged writers and pointing them at the onramp.
I find all your comments interesting. You’ve all basically said-don’t give up. I do read Dean Wesley’s blog and Joe Konraths blog as well. I call these guys “the old timers”(sorry guys). I call them that because they have been around a long time and have lived through the traditional publishing and now into the indie publishing world. They bothed worked their asses off to get where they are now. It wasn’t easy. I think as a writer you have to understand that success takes time and you have to ask yourself what sucess is to you. You have to be prepared to work very hard and I know all of you already know that. It’s just that sometimes writers compare themselves to others and they find they don’t measure up and that is wrong. You can’t compare yourself like that. You are you and that is okay. Don’t be afraid and keep going.
I would first like to say – programmers actually make some awesome money in Utah. My husband increased his salary by a HUGE amount by moving here.
Second, I have been in this man’s shoes. I got to a point where I felt defeated. I knew I wouldn’t want to write for my niche publisher for forever – their market was limited and there was a cap to buyers.
I also worried about going after the Big 6. Bob Mayer and Jennifer Crusie affected me a great deal in this regard – what they were saying about the market in 2007 freaked me out. I know now how much worse things have gotten. The message was either go big or go home – there was no longer any room for a midlist author and unless you had a Blockbuster Novel, things would not go well for you.
And I didn’t have a Blockbuster Novel. I had ideas that I loved, but knew that they most likely wouldn’t have that six-figure bidding war potential.
My other issue was that I wrote romance and found myself in an odd spot where I didn’t want to be forced to add explicit love scenes (as a fellow author had been on her national publication) and I didn’t want to write Christian-themed romances. I just wanted to write a sweet romance. Who would buy that?
So I didn’t know to do and I fell into a similar funk. Plus I had two more extremely time-demanding children, and I set writing aside for a couple of years.
But literally thanks to Passive Guy here, who posts on a writer’s loop that I belong to, I found out about indie publishing. I had been a fan of JA Konrath’s advice back when he was still traditionally publishing – and this brave new world he was describing – I spent several days in front of my computer going back through years on his blog and absorbing all his posts. I started devouring the information from DWS and KKR.
It changed my perspective – I can write whatever I want! No one will dictate what is/isn’t allowed – that will be between me and my readers. For days it was all I could talk about (I’m sure I drove my family nuts). I was so, so excited.
And best of all? I wanted to write again! The Muse came roaring back and it’s been all I can do to get the words on paper fast enough.
I don’t expect Konrath level success, but so what? (And I hate that he’s used as a measuring stick as a reason for why indie publishing is futile – how many traditionally published authors make that kind of money? Very, very few.) I get to write what I want when I want and I don’t have to hope/dream/pray that someone in New York will deem me worthy enough to enter into their precious gates.
I wish I could tell him there’s another way and to not abandon hope.
Good for you, Sariah.
[...] real writers.” And then yesterday, in the Passive Guy’s excellent blog, as they were discussing a writer’s disgust with the current traditional field and prospects of making it (in other words someone who is where I was) some young lady (Oh, I hope to heaven she’s young) [...]
Thanks for everyone’s input and comments. I appreciate your input.