(I stole the pic from Cafepress, but I'm thinking it's okay since I'm basically giving them free advertising for their AWESOME T-shirts, yes??)
Oh. You can buy this one here. ;-)
NOW it's advertising...
And now for a healthy dose of reality from Jolene.
Being a writer is not easy.
I love it.
I don't want to change it.
But it's a lot of hard work.
I can spend two hours on the computer, do no writing, catch up on no blogs, and still not take care of all my small little loose ends - like my inbox that regularly gets up to between 900 and 1000 before I have a panic attack and "fix" it.
At any given moment, in any given day, there are a million other things I could be doing besides writing. Very often, at least a few of those things are urgent. If you really, really, really want to write, you make time.
I joke about my family sacrificing good meals, but when I'm working on a new project, we eat stuff from the bottom of the freezer for a couple of nights, have Mike pick up fast-food a couple of nights...
I do not like eating this way, but sometimes we do.
People ask how I write so fast, and the answer is that I really, truly, honestly think about almost nothing else when I write. I'm probably a very strange person to be around when I'm immersed in a new project. I would have no idea about this, since I'm half inside the story, night and day. I make notes on my phone and grab my laptop in the middle of the night, shut the bathroom door, and write on the floor until I can find my way back to bed.
I actually need to do collabs sometimes b/c when the doc isn't in my hands, I'm on forced break.
It's not easy deciding where to send copies of my book for review. It's not easy spending hours online trying to figure out the best blogs with the right kind of audience.
And I've met some really fun people who review books.
I want to give away paperback books all the time but it costs a LOT of money.
I figure I have to sell about 10-15 ebooks to make a paperback copy worth it, and I don't think that happens often, but I also don't want to be the stingy author.
I LOVE giving stuff away.
It sucks to have people ask for things and to have to say no.
It sucks to have one star reviews when you know for a fact no one has read your book.
It sucks that people I don't know have me on lists like "authors behaving badly" and "will never read"
I have NO idea who these people are, or what on earth I could have possibly done to offend them.
It's not worth feeling bad about, or stressing over, but it does suck. I don't want to be reminded that there are trolls out there. I want people to be full of rainbows and sparkly ponies, unlike my post today.
You get rejection at every stage of the game. Whether you're querying, on sub, or your book has been released. It just changes forms.
Writing the first draft of your book is the easiest part of what you do when you publish. The EASIEST.
Making it good enough to be out in the world and taking care of all the "extra" stuff is where the real work is.
If you're struggling getting your first draft down, you are really going to have to find some determination within yourself because you're still doing the easiest part. (I'm so worried I just destroyed a few people with this comment - you're probably cleaner writers than me - I do type on my phone and bathroom floor)
Formatting? Took me forever to figure out how to do right. But the point is - I worked at it over and over and went to site after site until I figured it out. Again. It's not easy. I researched. And researched. And then researched some more. I researched hard when I was learning to write queries, when I was looking for an agent, when I was learning about publishers, when I was trying to decide if I wanted to self-publish. I made a LOT of mistakes, but that's how we figure things out.
I create people and stories that other people are not going to like. That some people will hate. That some people will be totally "meh" about because that story just didn't hit them in the right way. I'm going to go through all of this work and my book might not do very well.
I can promote my book to death and have it not take off, or almost not promote at all and have it be my best selling book.
When people ask me for advice, all I can do is share my experience. I have NO idea what works and what doesn't work when trying to sell your books.
I know your writing needs to be good.
Your story needs to not only be strong, but stand out and offer something different.
And even then... I've seen more than one book sell gajillions of copies w/ sloppy writing, so that's not even necessary.
I know. This seems like such a downer kind of thing, but I think what I've learned is not to take any bit of the process personally.
Been hit with any realities lately??
Or maybe I should be asking you guys for rainbows and sparkly ponies??
Or links to Ryan Gosling's abs...
Because that always makes a day better ;-)
~ Jo
9 comments:
Reality is kind of a sucky thing and people are AWFUL. It takes them two seconds to tear apart what it took you ages to build but I'm flippin in love with your books for what it's worth!
A great post. A healthy dose of reality never hurt anyone ...
And when your having a bad day and questioning all your hard work and why you don't just change your standards and write that sloppy book full of sex and abusive men... You turn for support to the people who love your stories and appreciate not reading typos every other sentence and advocate your strong women and have you on their top ten list of fave people of all time, not authors, people. You continue to stick to your methods and not cheap out to make a buck, you continue to be an inspiration to those who value storytelling, longevity and craft, over fad and one-click publishing.
^^^ that was my Unicorn pooping rainbows and cupcakes.
My immature and knee jerk response is "mean people suck... $&@! 'em."
Haters got to hate, ignore them. Although not every feeling a book brings has to be positive. Some of the best books I have read had characters I just plain hated. What is important IMHO is that a book makes you feel something, anything, or gain some insight into the world or both. Yours do both.
Whatever it is you do, keep doing it. Every act of creation pushes back the darkness a little more.
So much truth to this post! I think it's good for writers to vent, especially to each other, because it IS hard to have someone tear down your work and it IS hard to keep doing something you love because it takes so dang much effort.
EVERYONE has different tastes. I feel like I need to have that added somewhere to my tattoo collection. And you have to remember that EVERYONE has access to the internet these days. My mom told me to picture the people from the crazy Wal-Mart pictures sitting down and writing some of these reviews. I have to say, that helped a little.
You're an amazing author and I'm glad that you keep at it. In the end it will all be worth it. Whenever you're having a tough day, go look at my "eye candy" board on Pinterest and I'm sure you'll find a way to smile...
People have you on a hate list? Seriously? You are one of the most generous, positive authors I know. And I'm not just saying that because I like you. Pretty much, I like you because you ARE so positive and lovely!
Reality stinks. I have all kinds of stories in my head right now and can't write but a sentence of each. I am in a place where I'm more scared of writing badly than not writing at all. Totally sucks.
But it won't last. Eventually I'll break through, and be plowing through a story again. But it will never be unicorns and sparkles because no matter how much I love writing, it's never, ever, ever been easy for me.
True. True, true, true. Agree with everything. Love ya.
Authors behaving badly. Really? You are one of the least offensive people I have EVER met online.
It's a strange thing, this writing gig. I mean, we work our butts off over and over, never knowing if anyone will read our words, or like them. But it's what we do because ... we have to!
And I LOL'd hard at your comment about crushing people by saying the first draft is the easiest part because right now, I HATE the first draft. Well, no. I hate that I can't work out how to fix the beginning, I'm itching to finish the story but I need to make the beginning make sense first!
This is a great post. No wonder exhaustion is a writer's almost constant companion. Thanks for venting so we can all commiserate together.
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