“I don’t need time; what I need is a deadline.” I think it was Duke Ellington who said that. I might add that I also need a publisher.
I write curriculum nonfiction for Enslow Publishers. These are nonfiction books sold mainly to the school- library and library markets. (They’re the kind of books a kid would take out to do a report or learn about a subject of interest.) Usually, the topics, reading level, and length are decided by the publisher. My first two books with Enslow were written “for hire”, which means they paid me a fee up front and now the publisher owns the copyright. My next three contracts have all had a royalty attached. I don’t know how much the books will make ultimately, but I can guarantee, they aren’t going to make me rich. More importantly getting my fiction published is what would make me happy.
Recently, a friend of mine asked if my fiction writing was suffering because of my curriculum book projects. It is. But there is something very comfortable about having a contract before I write the book and knowing that what I write is going to get published. Another Marion Dane Bauer quote comes to mind; she said that there is a difference between wanting to write a book and wanting to have written a book. This quote comes to mind a lot when I am playing Spider solitaire instead of writing. But it is an important point. Are you writing for the writing or are you writing for what comes after? I don’t mind doing the work of writing, but I do get frustrated when my work sits on a shelf.
So, how important is it to know that your writing is going to make it out into the world?
Best, Mara
I don’t know if I’m a teacher or not, but I am paid to attempt to teach high school students grammar, reading, and writing.
I’m also paid to coach kids who wish to participate in speech contests. I find that the students in these contests, especially the talented and experienced ones to whom the contest is important, become very nervous shortly before and perhaps even during a performance. This is especially true of kids who have been successful in the past, earning high ratings and advancing to state and all state competitions. In subsequent years, these students seem to act as if they have something to prove, a former rating to live up to with a new performance. Invariably, however, as soon as these students become focused on ratings, on comparing their rating or possible rating to others or to their own ratings from previous years, their performances suffer.
So I think I will tell my speech students to forget about the ratings. I will encourage them to focus on the art, on the heart of what they are trying to express with their performance.
And now I think this philosophy might extend to our writing as well. Maybe the focus should always be on the vision of the piece, on the emotion or effect that we are reaching for when we begin.
Most writers want to sell books, to have their work “out in the world,” as Mara puts it. But the actual writing can’t, or perhaps shouldn’t be, reverse engineered like that, tailored to a market or a trend, or even just to a vague sense of what the writer believes the agent, editor, or even reader will like.
Instead, I choose to simply continue in the relentless pursuit of The Dream, trying to make each piece work the way I think it should, and hoping that it works out with someone else someday.
And all of this, perhaps, is my tediously long way of answering Mara’s question, of saying, that if we are “writing for what comes after” the writing will invariably suffer. If we are “writing for the writing” then that which comes after will almost take care of itself.
Great post, Mara! Great blog!
Comment by Trent Reedy — August 1, 2008 @ 3:52 pm |
I think a lot of it depends on the writer. Carl Sandburg left all the submission details up to his wife and he just concentrated on writing (that would never work with Deb). Emily Dickinson never published at all during her lifetime. And then there was Walt Whitman, who originally published Leaves of Grass with a vanity press.
I like getting the work out. I really enjoy being published and reading contributors copies and even getting paid every now and then. But I would keep writing regardless. As a friend of mine put it, if I don’t write I start feeling mentally ill.
Comment by Marc — August 5, 2008 @ 3:41 am |
[...] agree with Trent’s comment that the writing can suffer if a writer writes solely with getting published in mind–if he or [...]
Pingback by Internal Vs. External Rewards « On Getting Published Weblog — August 7, 2008 @ 3:48 am |