Two weeks ago, I received word that a book I’ve contributed to will be out in November. It’s a big deal because of the Lonely Planet branding and the many “big names” associated with this project, but also because as someone who is hoping to finish and sell a novel soon, this helps make my agent’s job a tiny bit easier.
I have to be honest, though. I’m mostly pleased about this book because it’s one of the small handful of writing credits I’ve accumulated this year.
You see, there were several years of my career where I was having something published two or three times a week. And not only was I being published, but I was being published in some of the top magazines and newspapers in the world. I liked that. I got used to that. I had never imagined myself as the kind of person who would ever want to slow down from that pace.
And that, in fact, is true. I have not slowed down the pace of the writing. The publication, though? It’s almost non-existent right now. I’d be lying if I were to say that I’ve not been envious of the many bylines and book deals (not to mention business success) that play out on my Facebook feed daily. I could, of course, go on a pitching rampage and get assignments right away and it has been tempting to do that, but I have had to set aside my pride and my ego in service of my bigger, more long-term goals.
The novel.
My career and my writing ability has grown more this year than at any other time in my life, but because I’m not constantly publishing new things, this is not apparent, even to me. If outward success was all that was important to me, this would have been a very difficult time in my life because there is no outward success. None. Instead, I feel happier than I have in years, more at peace with who I am and what I’m doing because I’m waking up each morning and doing the work that brings me great joy and an immense sense of satisfaction, even if it’s not going anywhere. Yet.
I’m no longer submitting to publications I could easily get published in, on very current topics that I know I could write about easily– immigration, social justice, mental health, feminism. Instead, I’m pushing myself harder, taking the more difficult (for me) and riskier route by writing fiction and submitting it to prestigious journals.
Last month, I received my first fiction rejection from The New Yorker. I walked around with a skip in my step for days.
See, life’s all about choices. You can have it all, but you can’t have it all at the same time.
I had the publication. I had the money. I had the outward success. But it came at a cost and that cost was the inability to write novels, the reason I became a writer in the first place.
So last year, after I walked away from a six-figure work-from-home job, I realized that I had come to a point in my life where I had to choose. I couldn’t do it all, but I could do one thing. What was it going to be? Was I going to be a shadow artist, being a writer but not really writing the thing I wanted to, or was I finally going to take the plunge and commit to doing the work that has haunted me for six long years?
I chose the novel. And that has come with costs, too.
It means I’ve had to consistently turn down high-paying work and assignments.
It means I haven’t been published consistently for a while.
It means people wonder why I’m no longer writing articles and always assume the worst.
I’m not naive. I have built my own career from scratch and helped more than a hundred of my students get to a point of making a full-time income with their writing. I know very well what happens when you turn down work repeatedly. I know that the decisions I make now will be very difficult to come back from. Personally, too, my family has made sacrifices. We live outside of London, a city I adore. We rent instead of buying the place a high income would have allowed us to. I haven’t been back home to India in almost two years.
It’s a risk. But everything in the creative life is a risk.
I keep claiming to want security and safety, but the truth is that every time I’ve started getting too safe, I’ve stagnated.
The creative life is not one of safety and to keep waiting for that assurance will do nothing but hold you back. Many artists will make the mistake of making their personal lives too drama-filled as a way of avoiding the risk and volatility of art, but in fact, if you can keep your personal life centered and in control, you will increase your appetite for risk in art and that is something that will serve you tremendously.
Make every other area of your life safe and secure. That will give you the freedom to take risks with your writing work.
Let me be clear: At least 50% of the time, often more, the risks I’ve taken have not worked out in my favor. Because here’s the thing:
The truest work you do will also be the hardest, most challenging work you do.
It is the work you will constantly put aside because it is so hard, because it comes with such difficulty.
It will take time. It will take commitment. You, like me, may find that you don’t get to publish other things during that time.
You can choose to see this as a failing. Or, if you can bear to set aside your ego for a bit, you can choose to see it as freedom.
The freedom to choose what you do next and how. The freedom of which sacrifices are acceptable to you and which ones aren’t. The freedom to decide what defines your life and your career and which values you will put above the rest.
All of your life is determined by your daily choices.
Just make sure you’re consciously making the right ones.