Rejection, Perseverance, and Why Write Anyway?
“Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” —Gloria Steinem
If we agree writing is art like painting or music, why is there so much focus on the selling of writing as opposed to the process? Yes, painters and musicians want to support themselves through their work, but writers are the group that are most likely to be asked the following questions:
How much did you get paid?
How many books did you sell?
When will the movie come out?
When will your next novel get published?
Are you still writing?
“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood
There are more variations, but the main message is: Are you a real writer? Are you a successful writer? Why don’t you give up, you unpublished fool?
1. I got paid an enormous amount. The money from my first novel seemed like a fortune although my account reminded me, I had never paid him, and it wasn’t very much. But it seemed like it was. There were well paid magazine sales, a tiny advance for my second novel and what was a huge advance, to me, for my third. In each case I felt bewildered, thrilled and, honestly, guilty. Who was I to get paid for doing what felt as necessary as breathing? Who was I to look at a dozen years of writing as something that should be rewarded?
2. I don’t know how many books I sold. Not enough or I could have sold my fourth novel, my marketing person would have continued to call me so we could have snappy chats about where to get the best coffee and my editor would have remained my editor. Well, she moved to another department, but she would have taken me with her. Writers are used to abandonment, foster care, and being orphaned.
3. The movie will come out when someone writes the script, and it isn’t left in turn-around or back up or whatever cool movie term you’d like to use. I had an original script optioned with talks in London, I was flown in, told about casting Meryl Streep, met a huge Hollywood producer in his suite at Claridge’s, where he rhapsodized about his passion for their shower heads, and then was fired by fax. Authors don’t control movie making.
“ You fail only if you stop writing.”
4. My next novel will get published when someone in a publishing house decides they are passionate about my writing and buys it. Well, they have to attend all sorts of editorial meetings, defend their choice and hopefully persevere despite low sales. See #2. Writers aren’t in control of publishing. Unless they self-publish which is always an option but to me it’s sort of like imitation crab.
5. Am I still writing? This is the question that often stymies me. Writing for a writer isn’t a hobby or a temporary thing. It’s what we do. It’s what we love, and we are always trying to get better. My father was a writer. I watched him disappear into the words, typing on his Underwood, smoking Kents, oblivious to his children and life until he emerged and did other things like mow the lawn. I see him now, silver head bent over a book, long yellow, college lined pad of paper, thinking, dreaming, writing. He was my best and hardest critic. I am my father’s daughter. He didn’t know how many books he sold either.
—Molly Moynahan, author and writing coach