Many new writers have to do away with myths such as “write what you know” and “write when inspiration strikes” their first few days on the job. But what about some of us experienced and mid-career writers?
What are the myths and fallacies of the literary life that we’re falling prey to?
Here, in my opinion, are some of the most common ones.
1. “Writing is a job.”
Well, no. Writing is a business. An editor is not your boss, he or she is your client.
I think it’s important for writers to make the distinction between “job” and “business” because when many people say “writing is a job” what they’re actually saying is that you need to treat it with the seriousness that you treated your 9-5 job, that you actually have to work, and that you are answerable to a boss-like figure, so you better get your act straight.
No.
Writing is a business and I say that you need to treat it with more seriousness than you treated your 9-5 job (or you may starve), that you don’t have to slog through work each and every day of of your life if you’re meeting deadlines and expectations, and you’re answerable to clients, who are your equals and don’t get to tell you what to do.
Writers need to let go of the “employee” and “9-5″ mindset and think like businesspeople instead.
Writing is not a job. It’s a service-oriented business. And you are in charge.
2. “Real writers write every day.”
What are some of the other service-oriented businesses that you can think of?
Plumbers? Painters? Interior decorators? Chefs?
Do plumbers need to fix toilets every single day otherwise they lose the title of “real plumber”?
How about chefs? Is someone who doesn’t cook each and every single day somehow less capable than someone who does?
Do actors perform on a daily basis?
I still don’t understand why some writers rattle off this statement even when it’s nowhere near close to the truth. If you, like many of these expert writers advise, wrote 1,000 words a day, you’d be writing 365,000 words a year. Three books.
Do you?
No, of course you don’t.
Because you’re a real writer. And real writers procrastinate, have bad days, have to deal with admin and pitching, and… shockingly!– don’t feel like writing sometimes.
As long as your clients are happy and deadlines met, you can NOT write if you don’t feel like it. Like all other entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals, you have flexibility. Someone who writes five days a week isn’t somehow more “professional” than someone who only writes two days a week (and if so, I guess I don’t count as a professional).
Jodi Picoult, a New York Times bestselling author, who writes a book every year is not a more “professional” writer than Kiran Desi, a Booker-winning author who took eight years to write that book. That’s the beauty of writing and/or entrepreneurship. There’s no one way to do it.
3. “In order to be a good writer, you have to read.”
It kills me to include this on here because I have believed this for my entire life. It’s just such an obvious statement, isn’t it? And it makes me SO SO SO mad when people come up to me (or post on their blogs) that they aspire to write books but then in the same breath admit that they “don’t have time to read.” It’s crazymaking and I have spent many an evening just screaming about the obnoxiousness of those statements (my poor husband).
The other day, however, I was listening to an interview with a writer I admire and whose book is just full of beautiful prose and when asked about her favorite author, she replied, “Well, I never really liked reading much.”
After I’d blinked in succession about fifty times like a mad woman, I realized that us writers, we need to accept that while most people who do not read will never be good writers (thankfully!), there are a genuine few amongst us who will be brilliant despite their lack of interest in books, reading, or good writing. It helps if you’re a reader, not only because you learn your craft through osmosis, but also because you’re more in-tune to the marketplace, but you know, I posted on Facebook after that interview and heard some pretty successful writers (very quietly) say that they weren’t much of readers either, especially since they started to write.
I hate that this is the case, but it’s the truth. (And I will hunt them all down and shove books in their faces, I promise.)
4. “It gets easier once you’re published/have an agent/know editors.”
This is true in the sense that you become a better writer with each word you write and of course, you won’t have the challenges that new writers have to deal with if you already have a few contacts, an agent, an editor who loves your work.
But the challenges don’t disappear, they change.
For instance, if you reach the New York Times bestseller list, your publisher will expect you to outdo yourself the next time your book is published. If a first-time author sells 50,000 copies, that’s a tremendous success. If a NYT bestselling author sells 50,000 copies, that’s a major disappointment and that writer may not get another book deal.
Expectations change when you rise higher and it doesn’t necessarily become easier. The challenges change but there are still new challenges to overcome.
5. “Writing is an art” or “Writing is a business.”
It’s both and sure, there are writers who are pens for hire and there are writers who choose to suffer for their art, but here’s why I think you should consider accepting the truth of both.
6. “Writing comes easily to good or gifted writers.”
And to that I say a big fat HA! I’ve already mentioned how it took Kiran Desai eight years to write her Booker-winning novel. But ask any writer– published, unpublished, successful or not– and they’ll tell you that there are days when the words flow like a gushing stream and days when they just wither up and die.
It happens.
To each and every one of us.
7. “If you want to be a writer, you must put writing first.”
Well, sure, if you’re Virginia Woolf, but look how that ended and I’m not sure you’d want that.
Look, I love writing, even the act of it, not simply having written. If it didn’t sound so pathetic and moronic, I’d tell you that I’d be lost if I didn’t have writing in my life. But as much as I like the act of putting words on a page, I love my family more. And this is where that whole work-life balance problem for my generation kicks in.
For the first time in the history of the world, there are millions of people who love their work. But we love our families a little bit more and writing does come second. All those writers (typically male) of my parents’ generation and before who were successful in their work but had crap relationships may have had movies made about their lives, but many of them were deeply unhappy.
My generation? We want it ALL and for a lot of us, we actually have it.
Which is a blessing and a curse, but it means that most of us put our kids and our partners first a lot of the time. And that’s exactly as it should be. But it does mean that we don’t get around to writing those novels sometimes.
So that, in a very long post, is a list of what I think are fallacies of the literary life. Can you add more?