July 12, 2010

Most of us start out writing because we feel a yearning, a call, a really strong desire to be a writer.

We have stories inside us burning to be told. We see the world in a slightly different way, and we want to share how we see people and events, all wrapped up in a spell-binding story.

Then What Happens?

Somewhere along the way, I’ve noticed, the calling often becomes a career mindset. It might happen with the first sale, or it might not happen until years into publication. With me, it happened after I’d had two or three novels published by Atheneum.  Status became more important than telling a good story.

Warning: this can happen to you too! Be aware of the signs and what can trigger it.

A Common Story

With me, it was financial need. It was the 80s during the farm crisis, and we were in danger of losing our Iowa farm. Suddenly sales were crucial. Advances had to be bigger and bigger. I began to worry more about whether I needed an agent than if my current book was better than the last one. Achieving excellence took a back seat to making money.

I wish I had seen it coming. Getting back to your calling-your love of storytelling-is a lot harder than maintaining it in the first place.

An Agent’s Perspective

Literary agent and author Donald Maass (in The Fire in Fiction) suggests that writers are either those who desire to be published, or those who desire to tell stories. They may start out the same, committed to making it as writer, to being the best storyteller he/she can be. He says that over time a writer’s real motivation will emerge.

Admittedly, I took the ICL course with a hopeful eye of staying home with my children and having a career too. But did that necessarily mean that I had to change from being a storyteller to a status seeker? No, I don’t think so. I think your calling and career can co-exist within you-but only if you guard your writer’s heart carefully.

What needs to stay in the forefront? A pursuit of excellence, for one thing. Keeping the writing fun for another.

Warning Signs

What are some signs that you’re moving from a storyteller to a status seeker? Maass gives some insightful signs:

• The majority of status seeker writers seek agents and publication years too soon.
• When rejected by an agent, the status seeker writer immediately offers the agent something else from his desk drawer. (Not something better-just something else.)
• Status seekers grow frustrated with rejections, thinking landing an agent is a matter of luck. Storytellers know that something is missing from their writing and they work on it.
• Status seekers ask how they can just make their stories good enough to sell. A storyteller is more concerned with making his story the very best it can be.
• With a first contract status seekers are very concerned with what they are getting for blurbs, advertising and promotion. Storytellers have a more realistic grasp of retail realities; they promote some, but then get to work on the next book.
• Status seekers go full time too soon, relying on advances for their living. Storytellers keep their day jobs for as long as it takes.

More details are given in his book to distinguish status seekers intent on building a career and storytellers who are called. You can also download (free) the author’s earlier book The Career Novelist by going to Maass’ website.

Do you think you can have a career–yet keep your “calling” as a storyteller the most important? How can a writer keep his priorities straight? What do you think it would take?

April 21, 2010

I love flying for the simple reason that you get to read on planes and in airports. Last week I re-read an old favorite If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland (originally published in 1938). Reading some of her comments, you’d think she was writing in the 21st Century.

Chapter Ten has a lengthy title: “Why Women Who Do Too Much Housework Should Neglect It for Their Writing.” The chapter is about doing too much (unnecessary stuff) for others and neglecting your writing.

The More Things Change… 

While most of us today have enough modern conveniences that housework isn’t the time-consuming drudge it used to be, we’re trying to juggle home, day jobs, carpooling, throwing kids’ birthday parties, running the school’s bake sale, and a thousand other things. Some things are truly important to your child’s and family’s welfare, but much of it isn’t.

Let me quote Brenda Ueland and see if you agree: “They [wives/mothers] are always doing secondary and menial things (that do not require all their gifts and ability) for others and never anything for themselves. Society and husbands praise them for it (when they get too miserable or have nervous breakdowns) though always a little perplexedly and half-heartedly and just to be consoling. The poor wives are reminded that that is just why women are so splendid–because they are so unselfish and self-sacrificing and that is the wonderful thing about them! But inwardly women know that something is wrong.” 

That Was Then! Or Was It?

You might say, “But that was 1938!” Yes, but judging from the letters I get from mom/students, things haven’t changed all that much. We break our necks trying to keep up with whatever “expert” says a good wife or good mother does. We still “people please” and try to live our roles perfectly–instead of choosing what is the more excellent use of our time and doing that well.

My children (and now my kids and grandchildren) have always come before my writing. But in order to find time to write, I had to stop making my own pickles (like good farm wives did back then), running every children’s program at church, sewing costumes for plays, making applesauce out of the bushel of half-rotten apples given to me, painting my kitchen ceiling that was stained, and a host of other things. I wanted to write! Something had to give.

What About You?

Today I believe the pressures are much higher. Young parents are expected to have their children in several social groups starting in preschool, have big birthday parties for the kids, and be at everyone’s beck and call. Do you find that true in your life?

Could this be why you don’t have time to write? Does your family knowingly (or unknowingly) put pressure on you to give up all of your activities in favor of theirs? Or is the person putting pressure on you to be everything for everybody…you?