When you ask children what they want to be, they often start off by saying that they want to be a princess, a knight, and many other things that are pretty much impossible. As they get older, they often change their goals slightly and their new aim becomes something like a pop star, an Olympian, or an author. These new goals, while still unlikely, are nevertheless achievable, albeit with a lot of talent, hard work, and a fair amount of luck.
Say you did achieve that dream, though. How many of you actually thought through the reality of those early ambitions and how many simply envisioned the dream? In this blog post, I'm going to look at what I thought being a writer would be like as a child compared to the reality I've discovered as an adult.
What could be better than making a living doing what you love?
One of the first things that attracted me to a potential life as an author, was the fact that I loved writing. I don't mean that I tried it a couple of times in school and thought it was cool. I mean that I wrote literally whenever I had the opportunity and may have even got in trouble for writing when I should have been doing other things. I couldn't imagine that I would ever tire of my newfound hobby and, on the whole, that has been true. I still love writing and I still spend much of my free time working on my latest novel and short stories. Having said this, I'd be lying if I said that there haven't been times when I've hated it.
In my last post, I spoke at length about writer's block and different methods for overcoming it but what I didn't mention is that there are times when even I've struggled. I recently came across a job opportunity which basically involved creative writing and editing all day every day. Sounds perfect for me, right? The only problem - I needed a creative writing portfolio consisting of mostly fictional pieces. I've always been more of a novelist than a short story writer and didn't have even half as many pieces as I would have needed to cobble this together but still, I persisted. No problem, I thought, I still have more than enough time to write the pieces I need. Believe me, I tried, but I was so stressed out over this new goal that nothing I wrote sounded right and I found myself getting depressed and frustrated. A few days later, I ended up receiving an offer for another job and sure enough, the second I had a job and the pressure was off, my writer's block disappeared.
I'm not saying that everyone would react in this way and sure, probably the vast majority of writers wouldn't, but the never-ending pressure to produce something fresh and original can definitely take a toll on your mental health.
Writers just sit at their computers writing all day and after a couple of weeks, a polished manuscript appears.
Ok, so I highly doubt that many of you reading this blog post actually believe that this is how writing a novel works, but I'll be honest...when I was 6, I totally believed this. In reality, the average novelist (especially if they're new) will take months if not years getting a first draft done and even then, the work is not complete. After this, most authors will realistically do at least one rewrite and then several further smaller edits. Depending on the length of the book, this can take a very long time and even once the editing process is complete, you still have a long way to go with the publishing process.
I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of traditional publishing vs self-publishing as I will do a full post on this in the future, but if you go down the traditional route, most debut authors get rejected many times before they get signed and many never even make it past this stage, giving up as the rejection becomes too much. The truth is that you have to be very mentally strong and sure of your work to be successful as an author because if you can't handle rejection and failure, you won't get anywhere.
I should probably also point out that writers definitely don't spend all, if even the majority, of their writing time actually writing. Many of us have a tendency to get a little distracted. This distraction can be anything from social media to Netflix, and even food or other pieces of writing. Sometimes we even just sit there staring blankly at our screens for hours...all you have to do is search for distracted writer memes on the internet to see that this is actually a bit of a long-running joke among writers.
It's a great way to earn a lot of money, right?
Wrong. In truth, few writers actually make it to the point where they can actually live off of their writing, let alone have money to spare. Although the statistics for writers have definitely improved since some of the stigma surrounding self-publishing is gradually disappearing, it still doesn't look great for those of us who hope to achieve the same success as Agatha Christie, Stephen King, and many many others.
Even if you don't factor in the amount of time it takes to write and publish a book, as discussed in the previous section, you start off your life as a writer as an unknown...as someone that 90% of people couldn't pick out of a lineup and so it's important to consider that writing is not the only skill needed to make it as an author. Realistically, to build up the sort of audience you need to make some serious sales, you need at least some skills and experience relating to digital marketing. While it's true that some platforms like Amazon will do some marketing for you as long as you meet certain conditions, if you self-publish, you will be doing the vast majority of your marketing yourself. This will often end up costing you money, on top of the money you've already spent on an editor and a cover designer which means that self-published authors will typically not even make back their initial investment for a couple of months at least. I'm not saying it won't pay off in the long term, I'm just saying that it definitely isn't a get rich quick scheme.
It can be really lonely.
This may seem like an obvious one, but I don't think people really consider the reality of it. I finally finished the first draft of my debut novel after the pandemic lockdown and I'd be lying if I said that this forced distance from people didn't contribute to me finally finishing While I will forever be grateful that I FINALLY finished a book, spending so much time away from people, forced to look only at the walls of the room in which I was imprisoned was tough. Depending on where in the world you live, you're going to think I'm being a bit of a drama queen right now. In most countries, you were at least allowed to leave the house for exercise, after all. Well, I live in Spain and for the best part of two months, the only trips we were allowed to make into the outside world, were for food or medical care. For those of you wondering why we didn't just break the rules...there were literally armed policemen wandering the streets. Yes, it was terrifying. Yes, I felt like a prisoner in my own home. Yes, it did take a toll on my mental health to the point where, when we were finally allowed to leave the house again, I felt a little scared to do so.
It's not just in a pandemic that writing can be lonely though. Realistically, you're going to have very few friends who understand what being a writer is like (unless you've made full use of the social media writing communities, that is). This means that even if you aren't physically distanced from people, you can still feel distanced from those around you in terms of attitude and how they view your chosen career/pastime (however you view it).
If being a writer is so tough, why still do it?
Honestly, this is a question that I get asked a lot and the answer really all comes down to that initial point...love. Even when writing sucks, even when I hate it, even when our relationship is at its lowest point, I still love it...I probably always will. Even though some aspects of writing the middle of a pandemic have been tough, one of the best things about it is that through my writing, I have been able to keep travelling and meeting new people. Yes, I know that they aren't real places and people, but when you spend all day every day writing about them, completely immersed in them...they could be.
I've always loved travelling, and even though meeting new people terrifies me a little, I still find a lot of value in it. These are two things that the pandemic took from people and the truth is that travelling to the Academia dels Maleits up in the mountains every day and interacting with all the students (even if only in my mind) helped a lot to stave off the loneliness and depression that undoubtedly would have otherwise ensued. It may not have been the perfect solution, but it kept me sane and surely that's a good enough reason to continue with anything?
