Potential. Professionalism. Profitability?
Many of us have been told we’re really talented at something. But being really talented doesn’t automatically translate to being wildly successful, which can leave us confused and betrayed. What happened? Were we lied to? Are we not actually that good?
The difference between talent and success comes down to at least three things, each of which I’ve had to contend with, and why being “a great writer” doesn’t always mean becoming a New York Times bestselling author.
Potential, and living up to it
When people tell you that you’re a good or even great writer, they’re talking about your potential. I’ve been complimented on my writing since I was eight. My first book was published at fourteen (it’s out of print, don’t bother looking). But when I got to high school, a funny thing happened. My economics teacher took me aside and told me I was a big fish in a small pond, but to avoid being a tiny fish in the bigger pond of “serious” writers, I needed to get my craft to the next level.
He took one of my English assignments (graded at an A+ by the actual English teacher) and marked it up with a red pen. Mixed metaphors. Run on sentences. Lack of clarity. A few nuggets of wisdom here and there, but buried under verbose, flowery prose.
It was a shock to the system. He was the first person to actually give me constructive feedback. I could have stormed off in a huff–”What does he know? Enough other people like my writing. He teaches Economics.”
Instead, he and I became friends. Real friends. We spent hours after class in the library together dissecting Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. What devices are used in “I sing the body electric?” Are they working? Can you mix beautiful, flowery language with talking about mundane body parts and functions?
Thanks to him, I recommitted to being a writer as a core part of my identity, no matter what else I might do professionally. Which meant living up to my potential and honing it; not taking it for granted that I was a “great writer” but rather continually improving to be a “better writer than I was yesterday.”
I’m constantly honing my craft. It’s paying off. A reader of one of my upcoming novels wrote, “I am AMAZED. Your writing is so much more ... exciting? immersive? ...than your early stuff.”
Literature is an evolving field like any other, and just because you were once told you were great doesn’t mean you don’t need to improve.
Professionalism, and accepting that you need it
When I was first learning to drive, I wondered why you used only one foot on both the accelerator and the brake. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to have the brake pedal by your left foot? That way, in an emergency, your foot would already be on the brake! No chance of accidentally accelerating into a wall (or a kitchen).
Now, I understand. If we could have one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake, we’d always press down on both at the same time. It’s just how our minds work. We claim to want to write a book, but then procrastinate. We claim to want to publish but are too afraid to query agents. We claim to want a promotion at work, but look at incoming change as a threat, and keep doing what we used to do, not realizing we need to change to get somewhere new.
Fear of change and fear of failure make us risk-averse, and risk aversion is death to the imagination. But as long as we claim writing is just a hobby, that it’s not our “real” job, we don’t have to feel bad about not being as successful as we’d like.
A friend recently told me that there was a difference between creatives and professionals. Creatives, as mentioned in the section above, have enormous talent. But they don’t always get shit done. If they do, it’s when the mood strikes and two weeks past the deadline. They usually sign up for way more than they can deliver. But professionals get shit done. They tell you a timeline and stick to it. They understand their audience and serve their needs. They listen to feedback and grow, adapt. In short, they have their foot steady on the accelerator.
I’d like to think I can be a professional creative. Knowing how to make a plan and chart my progress in a spreadsheet and calendar doesn’t mean I’m less talented as a writer. For instance, I’m currently working on a massive fantasy series (2 books and 250,000 words down, 2 more books to go). Can I keep the plot straight in my head? That’s the wrong question, because that’s the easiest way to go into a shame-spiral: If I were as talented as MXTX, I could manage an 8-novel plot in my head. Instead, I use plotting software (Aeon Timeline) which also helpfully tells me how old my characters are in any given scene.
Profitability, and deciding if you want it
“Okay, if I’m talented and organized, why am I still not successful?”
Luck of the draw might mean that you’re entering a crowded market. The more lucrative the market, the more crowded it is. In writing, Young Adult, Romance, Mystery/Thriller and Fantasy are where the money is. If you’re writing in those genres, good luck standing out.
My last agent used to say that a book is a work of art to its author, but to publishing, it’s a product in a store. You can rail against genres, but if a publisher doesn’t know where to shelve your book, it won’t sell. You may hope that mixing multiple genres actually expands your market, but it usually shrinks it. Lots of people like chocolate. Lots of people like chili. Very few of them like mole.
The notion of profitability only really hit home to me when I realized I was getting rejected solely based on the word count of my books. “Too short” on one book, “too long" on another. Here are some samples:
I'm sorry, but your project does not sound like a good fit for me at this time, and so I will have to pass. This word length is too long.
Even though we found great qualities within your query and synopsis, we found the word count to be a little bit on the higher side.
One of these, I received within 15 minutes of querying, which tells me they didn’t even read the opening pages. So, in this era of eBook publishing, when every other person on the subway is holding a doorstop-sized book titled A Bowl of Mac and Cheese, why exactly does word count matter?
Printing costs. Paper supply. Editing and proofreading costs by the word. Non-standard binding for smaller or larger novels. All of which add up to two statements about the market:
If it’s too short, you can’t justify charging a lot of money for it, so you have to sell more books to recoup the cost.
If it’s too long, you can’t recoup your production costs unless you sell 100,000+ copies.
So, you have two options. You can Goldilocks your way into success by figuring out where you’re willing to compromise (several editors have told me they’d accept my book if only it were shorter / longer). Or you can ask yourself, is there a definition of “success” that doesn’t involve profitability?
For me, there is. I don’t need to profit off my book sales. I don’t even need to break even. Success, for me, is every happy reader who finds meaning in my book. And, as I’ve said before, One Reader is Enough.
YMMV.
[reader wildly waving]