Four “Types” of Creative Writing “Careers”

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From Catapult:

Writing literature and having a writing career are entirely separate things. A writer is an artist whose work may be informed or influenced, but never overdetermined, by the pressures of making money, publishing, and building an audience—that’s a writing career. Writing is pointless if you don’t get to write what you want, even if it’s obscure, difficult, or non-lucrative. But there’s also no reason to assume you’re not clever enough to make a career out of it too.

Most people don’t have a specific plan, and you don’t need one, but it helps to know what options exist, how viable they are, and which suit you best. Here’s four:

1. The Traditional Approach

Lots of people assume that a writing career is, like other careers, linear and incremental, a slow-and-steady race punctuated by opportunities and breakthroughs. The traditional narrative goes like this: You start off by writing short stories, often in a workshop or MFA setting, until they’re good enough to be published, likely in an online or college-affiliated literary journal called something like Donkey Hen Review or Mop Bucket. You keep writing, you improve, and your previous publications unlock the gates to more prestigious magazines: Tin House, McSweeney’s, Harper’s, The Paris Review, Playboy, The New Yorker. At last the stories pay off as you attract an agent, shop around a two-book deal (your collection of stories and a partial novel manuscript), sign with a publisher, and live out your days as a tenured professor in an Omaha farmhouse with two wives and three husbands and a border collie.

This is one way, but not the only way, and not the most efficient, especially if short stories aren’t your deal. First and most importantly, publishing stories usually does zilch for your career. Really. I’d even say it’s optional. It doesn’t boost your chances of future story acceptance, and while publishing stories might attract an agent, there’s no real point to having one unless you have a book to sell. Plus, everywhere except the biggest magazines pays in cat litter. You may even come to regret having your juvenilia out there, especially online (though in most cases it’s not a big deal).

Of course there are still reasons to publish stories: to share your work, boost your motivation, contribute to publications whose work you admire, become eligible for a baby-handful of fellowships or residencies. You also might work with an editor who’ll challenge and strengthen your work—for instance, the editor of this article, who thinks I’m overstating the uselessness of publishing stories and who “believes in the rigorous and careful editorial process at literary magazines.” (Thanks Yuka.) But if you expect any of this to move the needle on your career, well, don’t. I published short stories for seven years, winning a novella prize, an O. Henry Award, and a Pushcart nomination; these felt great, but did squat. The existence of notable exceptions—Wells Tower, ZZ Packer, Nell Freudenberger—does not make it a wise bet. Publishing a book advances your career far more than publishing individual stories or poems—there’s no comparison. And you don’t need to have published stories to publish a book.

. . . .

4. Freelancing

In my stupid opinion, freelancing is the most dependable route to building a writing career. It’s flexible, the pay can scale upward, you can get experience writing for a variety of publications and editors on a variety of subjects, you can garner bylines more quickly, and the exposure trounces that of fiction. It’s not easy, but neither is raising a kid, and you turned out okay, didn’t you?

If you’re unfamiliar with the media world, I’m about to tell you a secret, so have a change of underwear handy. For early-career writers, the publishing industry’s one big vulnerability—the exhaust port in the Death Star, so to speak—is that all those fancy, intimidating New York media companies? Well, they’ve got websites, and those websites are neverendingly voracious for freelance content. I’m talking about VICE, The New Republic, Salon, Buzzfeed, NPR, erstwhile Gawker sites Jezebel, Deadspin, Gizmodo, Slate, GQ, Vogue, Elle, The Atlantic, and so on. They’ve got to get literally dozens of posts up every day, and their editors are always looking for reliable freelancers who can quickly assemble 800-word takes on whatever topic is relevant that day. This is the easiest way to start racking up experience, editorial contacts, writing credits for big-name publications, and a (tiny, so tiny) bit of money.

Link to the rest at Catapult

PG notes the author seems unaware of the potential for self-publishing to launch and sustain a writing career.