Writing and Success

What does success mean for writers?

I imagine we all have different goals for our writing based on our ambitions, but for almost every writer, and most of the creatives I know, there’s this disquieting feeling that if they’d directed the effort that went into their creative pursuits to a different career, they’d be much further along by now and probably a lot more successful too.

Depending on the creative pursuit, it’s easy to see why.

Many of us work away in isolation (either complete isolation or as part of a small collaboration) for years while we learn our craft and build our body of work.

For novelists, the writers I’m most familiar with, it’s not uncommon for people to spend years on their first novel before they even show it to somebody, and regardless of the route the writer decides to take next, whether they go cap-in-hand to agents with dreams of a life changing publishing deal or become their own publisher, as difficult as producing that first work was, they quickly learn that was the easy part.

Success (as it is too often measured in sales figures, bestseller lists, and awards) is only available to the fortunate (and undoubtedly hard working but still fortunate) few.

For those of us who are unlikely to ever hit the bestseller lists in any meaningful life-changing way (I had a science fiction novel on the sci-fi bestseller list on amazon.de with three copies sold several years ago), how should we think about success?

If we limit ourselves to external outcomes that are mostly beyond our control, success might be elusive for a long time and fleeting if it ever arrives at all. If, like me, you want to write long fictional stories and you intend to write them regardless of the size of your audience, traditional measures of success won’t help.

I suggest, and this is what’s working for me, we focus on the things we can control, understand why we write, and recognize the quiet, not very glamorous successes our writing can bring us, whether that’s a connection with a reader, a good review, or the joy of creating something you love.

Terry Pratchett used to say the best thing about finishing a book, was that he got to start another one.

Put another way, the work itself was the reward.

My income from fiction isn’t nothing, but it hasn’t covered that many bills; however, my skills as a writer have allowed me to build a career I’m proud of over the past decade and that has covered all my bills, first as a technical writer, then managing technical writers, and now as a technical editor. I live in Australia, but I’ve been lucky enough that my career has taken me to India, Europe, and the US.

Any time I feel like bemoaning my lack of progress as a writer, I remind myself that without my fiction writing habit, I wouldn’t have the skills necessary to get into and succeed in this career.

Years ago (before Facebook and Twitter existed) a writer on a fiction mailing list I was part of asked:

There were lots of answers, but the one I remember the most (and the answer that ended the thread) was:

If I don’t write fiction for more than a couple of days, I get cranky. I don’t always realize that’s the cause of my irritation, but I’m getting better at seeing it for what it is as I get older and understanding that I process the world through stories and the written word.

There are things I want to say about the world and life, and ideas I want to explore, and fictional stories (for me) are the best place to do that.

At this point, the personal playground of my fictional world has a mythology that I’ve been adding layers to for almost two decades, a cast of battle-scarred characters, and an arena that will continue to push them and allow me to explore some of those big ideas that fascinate me.

None of this is to say I don’t think we should strive to make money from our art, we should if that’s one of our goals, I just think we should recognize that’s not the only reason to write novels or pursue creative endeavors.

I occasionally forget.

I used to define success quite narrowly, make money publishing fiction, and while that’s something I plan to keep doing, I’ve lived in my own skin for long enough to know that’s not the real reason I write goofy stories about dragons and laser totting assassins or wars against malevolent gods. I’m writing them because, firstly, it’s a lot of fun, and secondly, because I like seeing a body of work building up behind me and hearing from people who’ve enjoyed the work.

I’ll consider myself successful as long as I continue to have a career that I enjoy and allows me to make a meaningful contribution, AND I can find time each day (even just a little bit) to extend the latest misadventure I’m experiencing alongside my characters as I put them through the metaphorical meat grinder to help me understand myself and the world around me.

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