Wrong Mountain… goals we’re given and the prizes nobody wants
by Damon Suede
As it often is these days, our industry
is undergoing violent, seismic shifts that will affect the way
livings get earned and shelves get filled for the foreseeable
future. In case you haven't been paying attention, it's hard out
here for a wordpimp….
Strategies that worked six months ago
have begun to break down and the shrinking pool of competitive
vendors, venues, and outlets make a sobering sight for the
professional romance author. With lines collapsing, companies
dissolving, subgenres shifting, and readers defecting, the idea of
sitting down every day to tell a story that ends happily can start
to seem like a ticket to a room with soft walls.
More than ever, careful career planning
is not just important but essential to your solvency and sanity. Winging it is a recipe for
paralysis and disappointment. Gone are the days when you can pump
out 75K and assume that someone, somewhere will pony up to read your
screed. If you plan to do this for a living, taking stock on the
regular can save your butt.
For a while now, canny folks have been
urging writers to pump out books as swiftly as possible regardless
of content. More, better,
faster, and right now! On one level that makes sense, more you
produce the more they can buy. Unfortunately part of that equation
requires that we all go out and turn nonreaders into new readers.
That's not happening, at least not enough to move the needle. Still,
in an industry bounded eye deadlines and the pressure to produce
pages it's all too easy to freak out and mess up the one thing we
need for our books: hope.
I'm reminded of an anecdote I learned
when I was studying biology in college: apparently elephants and
rabbits fornicate at different speeds because of their relative
vulnerability to threats. Both creatures are vulnerable herbivores,
both fall prey to carnivorous threats in their environment, but on
the whole the rabbit
population has way more to worry about and way more members it can
afford to lose and still survive as a species For this reason,
elephants take their time making whoopee and rabbits hump quick
before they get picked off.
The predator pressure sets the pace.
Our urge to rush is a survival instinct
based on predator pressure. For those of us interested in learning
our craft and earning our crust, we can't afford to waste time,
energy, or resources. I say that not out of pessimism, but
pragmatism. I love this genre and I love our industry but I also
know that adaptation and evolution are par for the course. That's
just the deal.
I'm adamant about goalsetting. Knowing
what you want, playing for the right prize makes a huge difference
to your relative success. All too often I meet authors who are
writers simply because they write, not because they have any clear
goals. That's not super surprising, because the urge to write can be
overwhelming and almost gravitational in force. At the same time if
you plan to earn a living, you'd best develop a professional
strategy.
What do
you want, specifically, as
a romance author? If you could have one thing as a result of your
work as a romance author what would it be? Fame and fortune? Raves
and awards? An enthusiastic mob greeting you at public events? The
ability to predict the next hot trend? What pokes your professional
no-no?
Given your allies, assets, and the time
you can afford to use them, are you headed where you meant to?
One of the fun games I started doing when I was still working
in showbiz was to write an obituary whenever I was a professional
crossroads. It's actually hilarious and weirdly inspiring to sit
down and hammer out the past you'd like to leave behind you.
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honors and alliances that truly mean something to you
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projects that changed people's lives and moved the world
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loving relationships and a happy healthy home life
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the unique balance of adventure and comfort you'd dig
Knowing what I'd like to leave behind
when the curtain goes down, always helps me to decide what's worth
carrying and discarding along the way.
As you look down the road at all the
possible paths for your career, make sure that you're not climbing
the wrong mountain.
Unfortunately all too often authors end
up fighting other people's battles and playing other people's games.
Maybe you are dying to be a USA Today bestseller… Or maybe that's
something your chapter mates have foisted upon you. Do you
truly–madly–deeply need a major literary prize or is that just a
tacky hunk of metal that will sit on your mantel gathering dust and
fingerprints?
Where did your goals come from? Can you
promise that they're yours and not something you picked up along the
way like lint on a sweater? Maybe your mom wants you to write and
"real" book. Maybe your husband doesn't believe you're an author
until you make more than he does. Maybe you've been churning out
books in a category you can't stand just to one up that vicious cow
who lives up the street. Is there something else, something
different from all of the above that would make you truly happy not
just as an author but as a human being?
Hard truth: not everyone can be a
bestseller; there aren’t enough eyeballs or hours. The vast majority
of books don't live up to their potential. A lot of folks spend a
lot of time climbing the wrong mountain because they never bothered
to check where they're going.
We all want to get what we deserve.
Frankly, we pray that we get more than we deserve… But of course
that doesn't make much mathematical sense. The nature of all prizes
is that their value is directly proportional to the difficulty in
acquiring them. Sad but true. If you’re going to invest all this
effort, you’d best pick the mountain you want to climb.
Sometimes we rush because we don't want
to see what's ahead or behind us. I challenge you to take 10 minutes
and look at the lay of the land and where you stand. Take stock.
Where you going and why?
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Make sure each project moves you closer to the kind of career that secretly thrills you.
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Build relationships with talented people who kick your butt and call your bluff.
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Support great books and brilliant voices in your genre so that new readers are perpetually delighted
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Make it a goal to find new audiences rather than going back again and again to the diehard fans because they get burned out too.
The greatest gift you can give yourself
is to meet creative challenges with joy. Actually, I believe that's
why readers buy books by certain authors. They connect with the
voice and they come back for the joy. And so anything you can do to
anchor and amplify your enthusiasm will make the job easier and the
payoff’s greater.
Don't let other people set your goals for
you and keep checking in to make sure that joy is a component of the
work you do. Make sure you're climbing the
right mountain and you've
brought along everything you need for the journey. Not only will you
enjoy the ascent, when you get to the top you know you'll be able to
enjoy the view.
Originally published as a lecture for Romance University.
If you wish to republish this article, just drop me a line.
