I tell my students that the odds of their getting published and of it bringing them financial security, peace of mind, and even joy are probably not that great. Ruin, hysteria, bad skin, unsightly tics, ugly financial problems, maybe; but probably not peace of mind. I tell them that I think they ought to write anyway.
(But, one might wonder, why? Lamott answers beautifully:)
My writer friends, and they are legion, do not go around beaming with quiet feelings of contentment. Most of them go around with haunted, abused, surprised looks on their faces, like lab dogs on whom very personal deodorant sprays have been tested.
But I also tell [my students] that sometimes when my writer friends are working, they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time. And sometimes when they are writing well, they feel that they are living up to something. It is as if the right words, the true words, are already inside them, and they just want to help them get out. Writing this way is a little like milking a cow: the milk is so rich and delicious, and the cow is so glad you did it.“
(For her, the essence of writing is about something simple, something immutable about being human.)
There’s this fic on AO3 that, according to my history page, I have visited 176 times. Which means I alone am responsible for 176 hits on that fic. I commented on some of the chapters, but only a few, because I feel like a stalker when I comment every week. I gave it kudos, but I can only give it one, even though it’s one of my favorites.
So just remember, when you’re looking at that hit count and wondering why you don’t have that same number of kudos (divided by the number of chapters, because each one of those also counts as a hit), it might be because some people out there love your fic. They read it when they’re feeling down. They open it in the waiting room at the doctors office, or in the lonesome dark of night. They turn to it in celebration when they did something right. They open it over and over so they can send the link to their friends, or just to revisit the characters that they love. They checked it ten times in one day, hoping that you had updated.
A disparity between hits and kudos does not mean that your readers didn’t like your fic, or that they were too lazy to hit the kudos button. It means that some of them came back, and there’s nothing that makes me happier about my writing than that.
literally never considered that.
I wish there was a “leave additional kudos” option for repeat customers. There are some fics I’ve read over and over and over and I want to heart it every time.
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Don’t research
Researching isn’t writing and vice-versa. When you come to a factual matter that you could google in a matter of seconds, don’t. Don’t give in and look up the length of the Brooklyn Bridge, the population of Rhode Island, or the distance to the Sun. That way lies distraction-an endless click-trance that will turn your 20 minutes of composing into a half-day’s idyll through the web. Instead, do what journalists do: type “TK” where the fact should go, as in “The Brooklyn Bridge all TK feet of it, sailed into the air like a kite.” “TK” appears in very few English words (The one I get tripped up on is “Atkins”) so a quick search through your document for “TK” will tell you whether you have any fact-checking to do afterwards. And your editor and copyeditor will recognize it if you miss it and bring it to your attention.
*re-reads my own story*: Damn this is some good shit
*gets to the part where I stopped writing*: WTF WHERE’S THE REST OF IT HOW DO I GET MORE
Brain: You’re the author, if you want more you have to write it
Me: *flips tables*
Yes, you. You, with the pen in hand, the laptop atop your lap. You, with the scribbles and the scrawls. You with the tappity-taps and clickity-clicks. You, with the eraser marks. You, with the red and green squiggles. You, who knows a piece of written paper equals a little more than half a typed page. You, who knows 50,000 words is about 100 regular pages. You, who doesn’t know how to spell a word because you’ve only heard it spoken, but never seen it written. You, who stuffed your work in the attic drawer. You, who saved your story inside a chain of files so nobody would read it by accident.
Your writing is important. Don’t give up.
I’m so glad this post crossed my dash today. I really needed this.
