Illusions Writers Face (Part Two)
Posted in Blogosphere, Thinking Critically, Writing on | 6 minutes | 9 Comments →
In Part One we left off with the idea that there are many illusions a writer might face throughout various stages of his or her career. I discussed a few areas in which I believe I achieved some introductory success as a writer, and not to embellish those achievements. The point was to establish a small amount of success to show that even a small amount of success can lead to all kinds of obfuscations and illusions for a writer.
So you got a book deal and you're in Barnes & Noble? Produced some television? Saw your name on the big screen, maybe? Perhaps the most painful illusion related to success is that success is guaranteed to recur. It's not. Another major illusion is the idea that success will never happen at all. Keep plugging away. Another illusion is that success is guaranteed to happen in a certain way, or in the way we expect, or the same way as before, and it's quite easy to get discouraged because what one defines as "success" comes too slowly or with too much effort. Think outside the box. Although hard work tends to pay off in general, success is not something the writer can always predictably control. Paradoxically, the only guarantee with success as a writer is that there are no guarantees with success in writing!
We can set ourselves up for failure by expecting to see things unfold according to a traditional formula or presupposed plan. When certain assumed markers aren't readily in sight we might falsely conclude that we lack talent, ambition or appeal. For example, we might wonder what's wrong when some blowhard is cussing us out on the internet or when a pallet of copies is sitting with a particular distributor. Yet this, or that because one doesn't need to get a bigger mailbox to accommodate their self-published book sales, or because every or any lit mag and/or newspaper isn't hounding one for an interview, or because the phone isn't ringing off the hook with publishers and agents begging to publish one's book – none of these things is any reliable measure by which we can accurately judge our competency as writers. In fact, unchecked focus on any or all of these things will likely prevent us from writing fearlessly and fiercely, and inhibit us from writing who and what we really are.
Say you're a blogger but you've never published anything and that's your ultimate goal. Upon startup, you might lament the fact that barely anyone leaves comments at your blog, or that the stats are begrudgingly low. You might think these facts lead inevitably to the conclusion that you are dull and unappealing, but such is simply another illusion. Things take time. Different people have different degrees of power at their disposal to promote and market their blog. Different ideas are more popular than others. Number of hits or comments does not entail that any blog is good or even worth reading. Yeah, certain blogs get a million hits per month, but look at the intolerance and stupidity of the wildest sort in so many of the threads! Of what good are ten thousand hits per day if the resulting threads are reasonably describable as an intellectual infinite regress? Quantity does not equal quality, if I might borrow a common axiom, and it's a fool's game to treat blogging or writing like MySpace. Who really cares about popularity and the moronic predictably of following of party lines? Be you.
Another illusion is to define success in an exclusively pleasurable context. Success will not always entail pleasure, and ironically, privation endured can lead us right back to success. Long, arduous periods of intense and unpaid writing is actually great success – success of determination, will, discipline, faith and perseverance. The production of spec scripts, blog content, manuscripts or any other type of content is virtually always a good thing for any real writer. But you're right – no one wants to eat Ramen and beans forever, either. You won't.
Don't get me wrong, there can certainly be rags-to-riches success stories in a writer's career. It happened to me and I still can't believe it. When I saw my first screenwriting produced and joined WGA and saw my first books published, I entertained all kinds of absurd and licentious fantasies. Going from homelessness to a legal six-figure yearly income overnight can do that to you. But my experiences also testify that rags-to-riches deals are short-lived and futile to expect, not to mention few and far between. And I'm essentially as broke now as I ever was. No worries.
There is perhaps one thing I can say about success that is not an illusion but an undeniable fact: True success often lies in the small milestones to be found in every writer's career. Guess what? That spec script you wrote a few years back? That's a small (actually more like medium-large) milestone, one that could potentially land you a rags-to-riches deal. Trust me. So don't get discouraged by lack of results.
Continuing with our blogger example, keep plugging away and let the chips fall where they may, and guess what? Sooner or later you'll start to achieve small milestones. You'll get your 100th comment. Then your 500th comment, then your 1,000th, and so on. You get some regular readers and your blog starts to develop a feel. Commenters begin to engage one another in the threads, and for better or for worse, other bloggers begin to devote entire posts to yours. None of these is going to buy you a new car or anything, but all of them are small milestones whose aggregate can only be defined as a cumulative success.
And from such foundations, who knows what might happen? Look at Ebonmuse of DaylightAtheism. All opinions aside, his huge collection of small milestones and great writing led him to a book deal, and that's an awesome accomplishment. But remember, lasting success is not possible without small milestones, the unsung heroes of every writer's career.
So think about that next time you're discouraged on the subject of writing, I suppose. You might have already sealed a six-figure deal without even knowing it. That's about the best I can say on the matter at the moment.
MS Quixote
says...cl,
Thanks for putting in the time and effort on this one. Very edifying to anyone feeling the weight of these illusions, both positive and negative. Much appreciated.
cl
says...Hey, I’m just glad you walked away with something from it. Not to mention thankful you put the fire under me arse to finish it. Enjoy the weekend!
pboyfloyd
says...In this, I am your ‘brother’. I can almost feel your want. I have ‘wanted’.
Just the notion that we can and do influence others with little marks on a page or a monitor is exciting and powerful.
I like to make people laugh but I am disappointed in myself qua comedian, a dismal failure actually.
I want to be concise without becoming a sloganeer(if there is such a thing).
I want to ‘move’ readers without becoming a propagandist(although sneering is fun sometimse).
I think that there’s a trick to writing well inasmuchas there is a trick to everything.
Everything is a process and I ‘hear what you are saying’ that part of the process is getting successes ‘under your belt’.
Me, as my own worst critic, am(is?) always asking myself, “What have you done for me lately?”
If(and when) I ‘get down on myself’ I listen to this!
Just sayin’.
pboyfloyd
says...(Ebonmuse ‘talking’)”…Haught presumes for himself the right to judge which atheists are or are not sufficiently “serious”
You say, “Why should that be any sort of problem?”
The context is that Haught’s students are to be exposed only to his idea of who a serious atheist is, and Ebonmuse is saying, “No.”
So what if Ebonmuse says all that believe in demons are ignorant regardless of actual intelligence?
Ebonmuse is ALLOWED to think that believers-in-demons are ignorant AND that Haught’s choice of atheist books are giving students an outmoded impression.
The only inconsistency here is that you are comparing apples to oranges.
……………………………………….
You say, “So when I saw the John Adams quote-mine among other things, I was left to wonder if maybe Dawkins was ignorant or biased, and my concerns were justified. So why can’t any or all of Haught’s concerns be justified?”
Okay, since you brought it up, what is this alleged quote-mine from John Adams?
Why are Haught’s concerns justified just because you no-likee Dawkins inconsistency?
………………………………………..
You say, ” I would personally much rather read Nietzsche etc.”
So what? Where’re the inconsistencies? This entire paragraph and the next one is all fluff.
………………………………………..
“No attack on atheism would be complete without the obligatory slander that atheism can provide no basis for morality.” says Ebonmuse.
You retort, “That’s untrue on two levels..”
Haught goes on to do just that!
Argument from morality is standard operating procedure for Christians of all stripes and it IS suggesting that atheists are not constrained to be moral because of it. Ergo, SLANDER!
All I see is you saying that ‘not ALL Christians argue this way’. Well, can we say that most, if not ALL Christians believe that argument then?(First Commandment and all that?)
Plus, where’s the inconsistency that is supposed to be ‘fraughting’ our eyeballs?
(The ‘Post’ and ‘Preview’ buttons seem to be missing on your latest rant! My my!)
pboyfloyd
says...(Ebonmuse ‘talking’)”…Haught presumes for himself the right to judge which atheists are or are not sufficiently “serious”
You say, “Why should that be any sort of problem?”
The context is that Haught’s students are to be exposed only to his idea of who a serious atheist is, and Ebonmuse is saying, “No.”
So what if Ebonmuse says all that believe in demons are ignorant regardless of actual intelligence?
Ebonmuse is ALLOWED to think that believers-in-demons are ignorant AND that Haught’s choice of atheist books are giving students an outmoded impression.
The only inconsistency here is that you are comparing apples to oranges.
……………………………………….
You say, “So when I saw the John Adams quote-mine among other things, I was left to wonder if maybe Dawkins was ignorant or biased, and my concerns were justified. So why can’t any or all of Haught’s concerns be justified?”
Okay, since you brought it up, what is this alleged quote-mine from John Adams?
Why are Haught’s concerns justified just because you no-likee Dawkins inconsistency?
………………………………………..
You say, ” I would personally much rather read Nietzsche etc.”
So what? Where’re the inconsistencies? This entire paragraph and the next one is all fluff.
………………………………………..
“No attack on atheism would be complete without the obligatory slander that atheism can provide no basis for morality.” says Ebonmuse.
You retort, “That’s untrue on two levels..”
Haught goes on to do just that!
Argument from morality is standard operating procedure for Christians of all stripes and it IS suggesting that atheists are not constrained to be moral because of it. Ergo, SLANDER!
All I see is you saying that ‘not ALL Christians argue this way’. Well, can we say that most, if not ALL Christians believe that argument then?(First Commandment and all that?)
Plus, where’s the inconsistency that is supposed to be ‘fraughting’ our eyeballs?
(The ‘Post’ and ‘Preview’ buttons seem to be missing on your latest rant! My my!)
Thinking Emotions
says...cl,
I’ve read both parts of this and always meant to comment on it. For some reason, you remind me so much of an author named Bret Easton Ellis. You may have heard of his book American Psycho or seen the movie adaptation, or you may have simply heard of him since you guys grew up in the same area (at least, it seems you grew up in LA). Anyway, he often remarked in interviews that going from “normal” to millionaire status really messed with his head and he found out a lot about himself and human nature in the process.
This post is as candid and relevant as it is inspirational. Great stuff. The personal lives of writers and thinkers has always interested me for some reason.
Thinking Emotions
says...Oops! Six figures isn’t “millionaire status,” but it could be close, I guess. After all, $900K isn’t all that far from a million, but I suppose $100K is. I would never expect you to specify, so no worries; I’m just pedantic and boring enough to correct such a small error on my part. ;)
Bret
says...This is great. I’ve only recently been reading your blog, steered this way from discourse on CSA, and I enjoy theist/atheist discussions. But the spirit of encouragement in this post has kind of made my day.
cl
says...Thanks for the kind words, fellas. I would much rather evoke encouragement than disdain. I’m honored that you both found something I wrote so positive that you felt it was worth commenting on.
You’ve inspired me to brainstorm Pt. III.