I read a lot of writing advice because I want to become a better writer. But from ‘killing your darlings,’ to gorging on junk food when hitting writer’s block, the advice out there is broad.
The advice usually comes from the usual spots: blogs, books, articles. Even a J.K Rowling tweet can help me out, but something still nags. What I find, from all this advice, is that it’s always from successful authors. Look, hear me out. Of course, advice from those who have "made it" – and by made it, I mean, published authors who have sold more than a few hundred copies of their book – is inspiring. To know that even the most successful authors started out in the same place as the rest of us, battling away at the bottom, is great, but it still feels disconnected.
I need to know what someone at my level is doing right now, how are they struggling along just like me? How do they find time to write? What pays their bills, and how does this work alongside their prospective writing career? What do their partners, family or friends say about their work, and how does it help? How do they find a proof reader within their budget? What if they don’t have any fellow writer friends to lean on in times of trouble?
Information like this, I feel, is harder to find. Authors only get interviewed once they have a book published, which makes sense. But what could be more inspiring than a writer working on their first novel while putting in overtime at the local grocery store, maintaining a social life, shaking off parental criticism, asking when you’ll get a ‘real job’? Perhaps you don’t have this, perhaps you do. Either way, this is the other end of the scale, away from those pieces written by and about superstar writers, and ones harder to find.
My own dilemma is to flesh out what my biggest issues are as an unpublished writer, desperate to make a career out of it, hoping that one day, remuneration is enough to pay the rent, and fund my beer tokens. So, if you are out there, fellow talented strugglers, let’s discuss one’s hopes and fears, and even, maybe, solutions:
Get professional help
You’ve spent a million hours working on your manuscript, and you’re extremely close to getting it out there. But every time you take ‘one last peek’ at a chapter, you see a typo, or a grammatical thingy, or a poorly structured sentence, and you wonder how the hell you didn’t see it the last one thousand times you read it. You have read the book so many times, your mind is already a few words ahead – you’re not reading it, you’re recalling it. You may have written the best story in the world, but if it’s littered with typos and clunky passages, it stands for nothing. We at the bottom don’t have agents, so you need someone to look at it.
You consider a friend who is good at English grammar and punctuation, but can you expect them to proofread and potentially edit your entire novel? It’s a big ask. So, you look to the professionals. After a bit of shopping around, you realise it’s hundreds of pounds to get what you want. You don’t have hundreds of pounds, so what can you do?
What I am in the process of doing right now is looking for proofreading/editing companies (there are loads of them) and seeing whether they do competitions. Some of them offer the chance for one lucky writer to have their manuscript proofread for free. It’s a great way for the company to market their services, and a great way for writers like us to get that professional service without having to take out a loan. Keep your ear to the ground, and enter all competitions you see fit, and perhaps you’ll be one of the lucky ones.
Time – and the appreciation of it from other people
You work hard in a job that pays the bills. A must, if you want to independently fund your writing ambitions. So, after a hard day’s work, and all you have been thinking about is how to kill your villain, the last thing you need in the three-hour window you have for writing, is to have a partner, flatmate or family member distracting you. You’re a popular person, nothing will change that – it’s a blessing and a curse.
A lot of the advice I have read around this is by being a bit of a dick, and effectively saying ‘don’t talk to me’. Personally, I don’t like this approach, it’s a bit rude. I also might want to leave my workspace to take five minutes out and make a cup of tea. It’s pretty awkward that your housemate might also be in the kitchen, worried to talk to you because they think you’re still ‘in the zone’.
Again, although not fool-proof, I have two approaches. The first, routine. Make it routine that at a certain time of day, no matter what, you take time out to write. This will help the people you live understand that time as your writing window. This may or may not work for you, particularly if you work in a job with shifts, so I have a second idea: headphones. Put the headphones on to make it clear you are out of bounds for chit-chat. You don’t even necessarily have to play music, but what it does is blocks you from the outside world.
"What do you do?"
I love and hate this question. There’s nothing more satisfying than telling someone you are a writer, and I am guessing it is the same feeling regardless of how well-established you are. But it’s the following questions which can suck.
"What do you write?"
"Anything I want. Short stories. Books." Their eyes light up. They know books.
"What kind of books?"
"A mixture. I’ve written a children’s book, a creative non-fiction novella, and just finished my latest novel, a dystopian thriller." A writer of different genres. So fascinating!
"Oh wow. So these are published?"
"No." Oh. Just another wannabe writer. He probably works at Starbucks.
Chat over. The person can now only perceive your writing as a hobby. So, from their point of view, you’re not a real writer, because you don’t get paid. They can’t even Google you. Their initial excitement has worn off. You’re not on Amazon, so can’t be taken seriously. I’m not saying that other people’s opinion of your writing defines your career, but it doesn’t make you feel that great when it trails off like that. How to tackle this one? I’m still working this out, but I do know that you love what you do, regardless.
Questioning whether you’re good (measuring success)
This moves me on nicely to this next point. How are you supposed to know what success is? Is it selling your first book, getting an agent, making your first million, your first TV interview, or is it, in fact, being able to show your new friend your book on Amazon when they ask whether you have been published? Unless you have a fellow writing friend who you collaborate with a lot (gold dust), it’s difficult to share these feelings. And when you spend most of your time taking advice from those at the top, it can skew your image of what success looks like. On the surface, success looks like millions of Twitter followers, guest speaking events, and guaranteed bestsellers. This overwhelming target certainly doesn’t help me, so we need to break it down.
For me, it must start with something not yet achieved. One of the things I haven’t yet achieved is a published novel. That is my first target. And I want to keep it simple. I don’t want to start thinking about how much money I will make, or how successful it will be. The target is to get published. Then, once that has been achieved, set a new target. I don’t know what that target is yet because I haven’t hit my first milestone, when only then will I feel qualified enough to achieve the next step. We need to be ambitious, but realists too.
Hope
A small word, but everything can hinge on it. As I mentioned before, without a support system (fellow writers or an agent), the only person giving you hope is yourself. I’m sure you have people around you who want you to do well; friends, family, lovers, but ultimately, they will never quite understand the slog of it all, as they will never craft 100,000 words onto paper, accepting that it may never see the light of day. It is in these moments you need hope.
Perhaps this is the one area where the authors who have ‘made it’ can help, but you need to do some digging. Find those conversations around when these writers were at their most despondent, when they were struggling to believe in themselves. Other ideas might be to play inspiring music while you write. Music has an incredible way of triggering something deep within that no other stimulus can provide. Or go to that nan who always tells you you’re the best at what you do. It may be a bit artificial, as your nan may never have read any of your books, but we can all do with a bit of an ego boost now and then, and always from Nan. Get social. Other writers may be going through a similar spot. You may not know them, but you can share a similar gripe not many others can, forming an instant bond, and a virtual shoulder to cry on.
When do you turn your writing into a hobby?
You want to be a writer. You want to be like those guys at the top. You want your whole life to be writing, writing, writing, because you’re a writer. If you have focused your entire life investing everything you have into this venture, and are not seeing any return, you may not have a third-party support system to keep you propped up while you edge closer to turning your primary goal of being a professional writer into a secondary goal. However, if you don’t have those resources to lean upon, how do you gauge when to make the transition? Well, I guess it’s a case of simply knowing when. There was a point for me where I simply ‘knew’ that I needed to go and get a real job to help myself out. It still meant I would write, of course I would, but there needs to be some logic along with it. I need to eat, after all.
As you can see, these meanderings are from the mind of a writer who quite clearly is on a different level to those at the other end of the success story. But, to my original point, they are thoughts seldom written by others at a similar stage in the writer’s life, so thought I’d have a go myself.
It would be great to hear your thoughts on this. What troubles you most as a writer who hasn’t quite hit their milestone, going through a similar strife as mine? Let’s write through this together.
Happy writing!
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