While I didn’t hear any actual carping or hurtful remarks directed at Garth, what I did hear among the chatter was a lot of generalizations, from what sounded like aspiring writers, about what it takes to break into publishing today. Much of it was scornful, derisive, and ultimately defensive and seemingly based in envy. I couldn’t help but be reminded of this essay that I wrote three years ago, so I decided to trot it out again.
The day my first novel hit booksellers everywhere, my life changed. Not in that banal, dewy-eyed way that happens only in Woody Allen movies, where a writer types THE END at the bottom of a sheet of paper, rips it out of his old manual typewriter, adds it to a neat stack on his desk, and then treats himself to a Cuban cigar or pops the cork of that rare and expensive vintage he’s been saving for a very special occasion. Inevitably in the next scene, the guy’s having a three-cocktail lunch with his editor at a swanky Manhattan lunch spot while discussing what his next mega-blockbuster chart topping best-seller should be.
I know you’ve seen this movie. It’s the same one in which the first-time author sits in the boardroom of Random House loftily naysaying potential book covers, each rendered on four-foot foam core stand-ups.
Alas, my life change was entirely devoid of both free lunches and foam core; mine was much more banal. I discovered that when you sign that first publishing contract, there are endless numbers of aspiring writers anxious to indulge in one-upmanship at your expense.
The very first encounter I had with the phenomenon came mere days after You Are SO Cursed! shipped. I had a friend—very quickly after this experience to become an ex-friend—who had ordered the book and after skimming through it wanted to present me with his ‘notes and course corrections.’
I was genuinely baffled at the announcement. His notes and corrections about what?, I wondered, assuming that perhaps he had some small collection of typographical errata that either I, the editor, or the copy editor had overlooked.
But no. He’d gone through the book and composed ten pages of reaction intended to point out my flaws as a writer, from my characterization and dialogue all the way through to my plotting and storyline. “Take these to your editor and have a good talk about them,” he told me, very sincerely.
I was even more baffled. The guy seemed to think the finished product had been—what—a rough draft? I wasn’t going to rush to my publishers and say, Hey, you guys don’t mind recalling forty thousand volumes so I can do a rewrite, do you? My buddy gave me notes! Did this guy attend movies and then write the studios with acting and directing tips?
I could tell that the suggestions the guy was attempting to make were the views of someone who hadn’t even read any contemporary young adult literature, yet held very fixed ideas about what it should and shouldn’t be. I tactfully told him I wouldn’t be needing the notes. “WELL.” His reply was stiff and offended. “If you don’t want to BENEFIT from the EXPERT OPINION of someone who is THREE QUARTERS OF THE WAY through a Bachelor’s in English Literature, SO BE IT.”
As I said, former friend.
It’s an unfortunate fact that there are too many aspiring writers out in the world itching to tell anyone with a little success how they really should’ve done things. Some of them are at a nascent stage of the process in which they’ve thought they’d have a good book in them if they sat down to work on it, though they haven’t actually scribed anything more arduous than the occasional LOL!!! as a comment on a friend’s reposting of a funny cat video. Experience doesn’t matter. In their heads, they are the go-to experts on good literature. They know what professional writers ought to have written instead of those hot messes that made it to the bookshelves or the TV or movie screen. If you’re published and have managed to wander within their sights, they have absolutely no qualms about taking aim, pulling the trigger, and letting you have it.
Sometimes the treatment I get is of a passive-aggressive sort. It’s usually prefaced by a milquetoast preface like, I may not be a published author, but . . . . that delivers its deadly payload after that quiet cock of the trigger. (I may not be a fancy published author, but at least I know that it’s I before E except after C! I guess it’s true that editors are the real talent behind a novel, huh!) It’s a popular way for total strangers and old college chums anxious to score a point to correct stray spelling and syntax errors when I post a casual blog entry, or update my Facebook status—and a cheap and easy way for someone to take an uppity published writer down a notch.
Often the treatment’s more contentious, as when someone will dismiss me with a Oh, what do you know, you and your silly little children’s books? (Hey. Fully eight of my sixteen published novels are silly little books for grown-ups, thank you.) Or as when a former friend with no fiction credits to his name recently posted all over his social media accounts messages to the effect that it seemed like anyone and everyone was shitting out another crappy young adult novel nowadays and that he hoped he’d never stoop so low to such cheap, lousy, trendy way of selling out.
Listen. I understand being frustrated as a writer. I wasn’t an overnight success. I struggled for years—decades—to get an agent to look at my manuscripts, much less a publishing house. It’s tempting to lash out, to vent, to exercise those dissatisfactions upon others. Working a job you dislike while writing in your spare time to make your dream career a reality is a hard road to trod. There’s no guaranteed payoff. Slamming established writers, whether slyly and subtly or with outright hostility, is a quick and dirty way of venting all those resentments.
However, my brothers and sisters, I am here to tell you that it is not anyone’s path to happiness. Lashing out is not a route to accomplishment. Allow me clue you in on something that I think most published wordsmiths eventually discover, but that many would-be authors have not yet assimilated:
Your success as a writer is entirely independent from anyone else’s. Belittling someone’s accomplishment does not accelerate or enhance your own success.
Repeat that to yourself. In times of stress, let it sink in.
The world of publishing is not the tiny circle of the Supreme Court. If you were a judge disappointed that Elena Kagan got the last open slot that you more amply deserved, it’s understandable that you might be a little miffed at having to wait around for one of the other eight Justices to retire or kick the bucket before you get a vanishingly small chance at advancement.
But publishing’s not like that. The fact that J. K. Rowling managed to get into print before you doesn’t in the least imply you’ll never be published. Her runaway sales have absolutely no bearing on how well your book would or wouldn’t do in the marketplace. You may be offended that Fifty Shades of Grey managed to hit the bestseller list while your vastly superior manuscript is still making the rounds of agents—or is sitting in a drawer somewhere, or is only half-written or even still exists only in your head. But as a success story, Fifty Shades has absolutely no direct impact upon your chances of finding an agent and a publisher—or upon you sending that manuscript out, or finally sitting down to pound it out.
Why? Because your success as a writer is entirely independent from anyone else’s.
If your manuscript is facing constant rejection, it’s not because some sadistic best-selling author is sitting around at the publishing house, blackmailing editors to reject your awesome query and setting fire to story proposals that might rival her own and expose her for the pathetic sham she fears she is. (That’d be a fun book to write though, wouldn’t it?) Even if you have a finished work that you feel is your very best effort, its rejection is usually for more mundane reasons. It’s honestly not a good fit for the publisher, for example. It might be too different from the kind of thing they usually put on the bookshelves. You may have disregarded the publisher’s specific request for one chapter and sent them three. It may be that while your chapters are rip-roaring stuff, your synopsis and cover letter aren’t selling it the way they should.
It may even be—and this is very often the case with would-be writers—that your basic obstacle is not completing the manuscript at all. It’s infinitely easier (and definitely more fun) to pick apart others than it is to sit down and write every day. Aspiring authors sometimes find posting on the internet the OUTRAGEOUS and GASP-WORTHY oversights they’ve encountered in a FAMOUS WRITER’S novel or screenplay much more appealing a way to spend an afternoon than firing up Microsoft Word and trying to pound out another page and a half of a project that seems endless and unfathomably intimidating. Bad-mouthing a writer’s efforts on reddit or The A.V. Club while pretending to defend to the death the tenets of Good Writing elicits immediate reactions. It makes one feel good. It’s a hell of a lot more tempting than the truly arduous, solitary process of creating something original.
Envy’s the root cause here. It’s a seemingly swift and fleeting impulse, that snatching out to grasp something just out of reach, that stab and pang of His success should be mine! Envy’s a deadly sin for a reason, though. The problem is that indulging in lazy pot-shots can become its own pursuit. Envy doesn’t enhance one’s own writing. It’s an obstacle that keeps one from writing at all.
Belittling someone’s accomplishment does not accelerate or enhance your own success.
No matter how we justify it to ourselves under the name of philosophy, chasing after envious impulses races a writer down the wrong path. No matter how light-heartedly we disguise our contempt, insult as its own pursuit is no more than distraction.
Mean-spirited words aren’t magical totems that, once unleashed, edge their wielder closer to perfection. An eighth-grade girl can start a vicious campaign of whispers against a classmate, saying he’s a fat and pimply loser, but the slander won’t erase her own flaws—it won’t clear her own complexion, make her thinner or more beautiful. Proclaiming him a loser doesn’t transform her into a winner.
Likewise, slamming a writer as trendy does not make someone more of a rebel or an iconoclast, nor any more original. Maligning an entire genre as kid stuff does not make someone more literary, or adult, or superior in taste. Accusing others of shitting out books for quick royalty checks does not magically transform one's own efforts into hard-worked achievements. Implying that other authors are hacks does not mystically elevate one's own work into masterpiece status.
Insinuating that others are bad writers does not make you a better one. It’s a waste of your time, and of energies that could and should be creative instead.
What will make you a better writer? Sitting down and writing will make you a better writer. Focusing your creative drive to build and construct and imagine, and not to tear down or disparage. Finishing a short story or a novel, all of it, from beginning to end. Taking the time to approach the completed project with a critical eye and to rewrite as much of it as necessary, as many times as necessary. Learning to listen to the honest criticisms of select readers and agents and editors. And most importantly, picking up the pen or opening the word processor once you’re done, and starting something completely new.
All the boring old truisms you’ve heard time and time again—these are the things that will make you a better writer.
What will make you a published writer? Constantly improving and challenging your own craft. Learning to write eye-catching queries and synopses. Consistently and methodically sending out and promoting your work to agents and publishers. Repeating the entire process with another completed project, and then another after that—these are the things that will make you a published writer.
Carping about the successes of others isn’t even on the list.
When you read in an alumni magazine that an old college acquaintance had a book published by a respected house, don’t grimace. Don’t grind your teeth and curse her beneath your breath. The two of you aren’t engaged in any race; if there’s a rivalry, it’s probably all in your own head. (If it’s not, isn’t it really time you set aside all that past foolishness?) Your success as a writer is entirely independent from hers.
Be genuinely glad that after so much time and effort, her discipline and hard work paid off. The fact she was successful should inspire you to see a similar future for yourself—one in which your dedication to your story and your persistence leads to you holding a copy of your first novel, or a magazine with your first published short fiction. Belittling someone’s achievements will never accelerate or enhance your own success. However, learning that you can celebrate the accomplishments of your peers while pointing yourself in a similar direction will make you a much, much happier writer.
And more importantly in the long run, any strategy that makes you a happier writer will encourage you to become a more productive and effective creative artist. There’s plenty of room out here for those.
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