Hi friends,
There is no ladder, no straight path, no one road for a writer to follow, which sometimes makes us believe that the problems we face early on in our careers are the same problems we’ll face as we gain more experience.
They’re not. Or at least, they shouldn’t be.
For the first five years of my author career, I focused almost exclusively on the writing. At the time, I wasn’t sure if this was the right decision. It felt as though I was getting behind. Publishing is, after all, the goal. If you’re not publishing, if you’re not having that external marker of success, it can feel like years of wasted effort.
The truth is, I was building an incredibly strong foundation.
Once you move from the writing into the publishing, it’s easy to lose focus.
Yes, I was pitching agents and indie publishing books, but I knew during those first few years that my focus was writing. We all have limited time, energy, and money, and I spent mine not on building an audience or researching the industry, but getting really really good at writing.
My first novel was a mess. When I signed with an agent for it, I knew it wasn’t in the best possible shape but I had no idea how to get it to the next level. My agent saw heart in my story and she really loved my writing, so she had me work for two years with an editor to fix that book. Eventually when it was done, there was no question in anyone’s mind that the book was well-written and market-ready. The subject might not be to everyone’s taste, there were marketing factors in play, but no one, including the publishers who rejected it, could stop raving about the writing.
I had a lot of doubt about my writing ability with that first novel, and I was right to. I simply wasn’t very good. But I knew that fixing that problem, getting excellent at the writing piece of it would be the foundation for all that was to follow. And so I spent a lot of time, a lot of energy, and a lot of money on doing that.
I made a commitment to writing every day, multiple thousands of words a day. If you’ve been here a while, you’ve followed that journey. I’ve shared word counts and 10,000-word goals and NaNoWriMo wins.
Now when the rejections come, and they do, I don’t question the quality. I don’t worry about that piece of it. I don’t ever have to go back and do endless rewrites.
You’re right to doubt the quality of your writing. Especially in the early years. Especially in areas that are new to you. But fixing that problem, getting excellent at the writing piece of it is crucial. Because it will become the foundation for all that follows.
You need that doubt early on because it leads you to practice and focus, and that’s what moves you from doubt to confidence.
The other benefit, of course, is that you get faster. A lot faster.
Now as I enter into the next phase—the publishing—I’m not particularly worried about if, how, or when I’ll get my next book written.
This is key because as I start experimenting, I’m not reliant on one book and I don’t have exclusive attachment to one piece of work. I don’t have to worry that if I serialize one book and it doesn’t work, I’ve lost my chance. I have three completed and two unfinished novels, eight published nonfiction books, one book proposal on submission, and two more ideas that I’m discussing with various industry professionals.
I don’t get precious about any of it.
More importantly, I know I can deliver.
It takes me between one and three months to write a book. If someone came to me with an offer, I can write quickly, deliver quickly, and show up with enthusiasm instead of fear.
A lot of writers make the mistake of finishing a draft of the first book and then just getting stuck there. The book is their baby and they spend all their time editing endlessly, first on their own, then with multiple editors, building audiences, and creating entire social media feeds around this one piece of work. They stop thinking, often unknowingly, about their career and start thinking about this one book.
The biggest problem for most writers, including mid-career ones, is being unable to write. Being unable to find the time, the energy, or the will to produce.
You can’t grow beyond a certain point if you continue to battle the same problem of struggling to write and finish your work.
Solve it, however, and the world starts opening up for you.
When you have more than one, two or three books to play with, and you know you can deliver quality work on time, you go from being someone who is writing a book to a writer who can be tapped for opportunities because you have a history and a reputation for being fast, efficient, and meeting deadlines.
No one gives three-book deals to writers who take seven years to finish a book. No one is coming to you with a ghostwriting opportunity if it takes you a year to finish the first draft of a memoir. No one wants to handhold a writer through the primary and most foundational part of their job.
There are different types of writers and each of us have different goals.
If your goal is to write one book, get it published, and only then even think about maybe writing a second one, that’s great. It’s a fine choice, one that I respect, but I’m not speaking to you here.
If, however, you want to write all day every day, if you’re excited about the idea of writing more than one book at more than the glacial pace of one book every few years, and actually make a full-time living doing this (not because you got lucky in the publishing lottery but because you actively planned for this to be the case), then you need to learn to write fast, get out of your own way, and stop getting attached to a single piece of work.
You need to see yourself as a career author and start acting that way.
Cheers,
Natasha