What do you want? I mean, really?
I know an author – she works for Jericho Writers – who always wanted a two-book deal with a commercially ambitious Big 5 publisher. So she wrote a book and got an agent and the two of them got themselves in front of an outstanding imprint at a Big 5 publisher. The publisher said yes, please, they wanted the book.
I know an author – me – who had a perfectly successful career as a trad and self-pub author. Now admittedly life got a bit over-complex (kids, a business, disability in the family), but he’s still writing. The logical book would be #7 in the successful Fiona Griffiths series. It’s already mostly written.
I know a highly successful self-pub author – Debbie Young, who runs our brand-new self-publishing course – who has a very popular crime series. That series was badly in need of a next instalment and she felt perfectly able to write it.
But, but, but …
Last year was pretty damn grim. It was all about lockdown and anxiety and rampaging sickness statistics.
This year’s hardly been merry either. More lockdowns and more conflict over lockdowns. Some brilliant vaccine news (yay!) but also a succession of new variants. Here in the UK, the news cycle is, once again, crammed with a particularly grey shade of pre-Christmas gloom.
Which is why I ask: what do you want? What do you really, really want?
My colleague, the one with the two-book offer from the fancy publisher, said no.
The publisher in question wanted to dumb down her book, to strip it of personality. It was clear they wanted someone to deliver a commodity product which they would package up and sell as a commodity online. So she said no. Instead, she’s signed up with a smaller (but very able and ambitious) indie publisher instead, because they wanted the book she had actually written just as she had always envisaged it.
It’s a better solution for her.
And me? Well, that #7 Fiona Griffiths book just feels too large and complicated for where my life has been this year. So I’ve almost completed a literary book so barmy I don’t even quite know how to tell you about it. (Hmm: “It’s a literary novelty book about story-making, polar adventure and cannibalism.” Something like that.) I can’t tell you if the book will ever be published or not, but I can tell you that I’ve loved every minute I’ve had while writing it.
And Debbie? She confessed the following:
In the last few months, more and more indie authors have been telling me they are weary of the pay-to-play rollercoaster of certain publishing platforms. I know quite a few who are recalibrating to focus on quality rather than quantity. Particularly after the battering our mental well-being has taken from the Covid pandemic, stepping back from marketing pressures, while maintaining an effective author platform (website, social media, etc), can feel like a much-needed healing process.
… As to myself, I made a conscious decision this summer that whenever I start a new project, I’ll write whatever is in my heart, rather than necessarily what makes the most commercial sense. I took time out to write a standalone novella when I was overdue to write the third in a series of mystery novels. But I’m really glad I did it, and I will continue to take this approach for the foreseeable future. It feels controversial or even heretical as a successful indie author to be saying this, but I have a feeling that a significant number of authors out there when they read this will be thinking, “Oh please, yes, let me just write for a while! In 2022, I just want to write!”
I think it’s great to be commercial about what you write. Books are better for having readers. It’s hard enough getting published, let alone making any money. Manuscripts that start out without any feel for the market normally end up essentially unread.
But there’s a balance to be struck. Not one of us thought, “Gosh, I’d really like to be stupidly rich, so I’ll just write some books.” On the contrary, the passion came first. Thoughts about publication came second. Thoughts about making money from publication came a snail-like third.
So here’s the question: are you getting joy from your writing? Do you love the project you are currently working on?
And I don’t mean “love” as in “right now this minute”. Even with projects of passion there are dark passages that just need to be muscled through. I mean love, more like marital love: with its ups and downs, but still most definitely love.
Do you love your writing? I hope you do.
Have a very merry Christmas. I shan’t email next week or the week after. Normal service will resume in January.
Have a great break Harry and I look forward to new ideas in January. Love writing? You betcha. Not yet published, I ditched the grand literary novel for something I really liked writing, and my writer’s group ‘begged-for-more-please.’ But I also read both your books, and other books, and watched a great many videos, and I practised much of what I learned. People here gave helpful feedback. Then, quite recently, I stopped editing as I go. Stopped polishing every chapter. I think you discussed flow. Whatever it is, it captured the baroque turrets of my writing habit castle and reduced me to the ruins of a man writing headlong with passion. And I am in love with that flow. It’s like a drug. I lie awake at night musing on how the story turns next, then at some point, catching me unawares, thousands of words go off like fireworks.
I think that happened to my writing group colleague Duarte. He too was immersed in a serious literary effort but Covid on top of other upsetting events left him in need of an outlet. From his very first story about Flic, the ginger, crime fighting, moggy, I knew he was having gallons of fun writing it, and I cracked up at every wickedly funny episode. He’s just published it and I congratulate him warmly for surviving through difficult times and turning out a funny book to boot. I recommend it as a stocking filler if you’re pushed for ideas. Cat-fancying not essential.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1739867319/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_PY89V4RBCS7N2GZ4S7KM
The Ginger Flic Casebook
Have a good break, Harry. And, hoh, easy on those mince pies (I wrote peas first. Go figure).
As to your comment “the passion came first. Thoughts about publication came second. Thoughts about making money from publication came a snail-like third.”
This.
I started off on Wattpad. I had ideas in my head but publishing them? Dearie me, no. And novels are there to be read, right? So, I heard about the platform, and publishing was easy. That got me started. I found readers. Even better. Of course, the publishing bug bit next, and I went into the querying trenches.
Amazingly, I found a publisher. One novel is out, the sequel under way, and two more manuscripts ready for release once I have a publication date. Now, I ‘m not dreaming of white xmasses, but of some sort of regular income once more books are out.
It might remain a dream, but as long as there’s a goal, life doesn’t look so glum, even in the grey, dreary, dreich, dank, and drizzly monstrosity meteorologists call winter.
A very mery xmas and a happy new year!
I’ve just joined a miniaturist’s FB page because … um … well, who would not want their pages filled with teeny, tiny houses and Christmas trees and what not?
These guys are amazing. Seriously talented at making very small houses and all that goes inside. Most of them are hobbyists, so they love what they do and are proud of it. Afterwards, they post it on this FB page, but they don’t start a project with that in mind. They aren’t expecting to be famous or rich, they just really like making teeny, tiny things.
That’s what I want to get from my writing. The satisfaction of having created a perfect teeny, tiny thing (I’m into flash fiction and other short forms, luckily!) It won’t be easy and there’s lots to learn but that’s my ambition.
Of course, other folks noticing and saying ‘wow’ or ‘well done’ would be fine too 😄
Thank you, Harry. I always enjoy your posts but this one was particularly timely, apposite and (as always) amusing. I was even eating a mince pie at the time.
I think last year was easier, somehow. We knew we had to lock ourselves up and throw away the key. That gave an opportunity to focus, particularly for me, stuck in a winter in rural Greece, where there is little else to do. This year has been stop-start, should we shouldn’t we? Irritating and distracting. Trying to get to England but stuck in Greece and then finding myself, finally, back in England and wondering why I bothered.
Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to write the third Nick Fisher crime novel. Like Fiona 7, it’s more complex than its predecessors. I’ve tied myself up in knots and wondered why I’m bothering. Who gives a damn, anyway? Then I tried promising myself that I could write those other things that I think I really want to write if only I would get on and finish this. That’s been only partly successful.
After reading your piece, maybe I’ll forgive myself a little and take time out to write something of quality from the heart, get some perspective and enjoy my writing again. It’s really good to know I wasn’t the only one suffering. Have a great Christmas.
I absolutely do LOVE writing, especially when it comes to my projects, “The Supremacy.” This is more than just a great book, but a fabulous trilogy. A powerful series in the making that, once up and moving again (seeking professional representation) will be magnanimous. The Supremacy has a very bright and long future ahead in film, series, video games and so much more.
Do I love what I’m writing? Without a doubt.
Thanks, Harry, for some comforting and wise words.
I’m pretty sure that my magnum opus will never see a wide audience – if, indeed, it ever sees the light of day at all, since I’m not sure it’s even saleable. But I am still passionate about it, even when it’s got me pinned against a wall fighting it desperately, and for every plot issue I slice off another two keep popping up like a Hydra’s heads. It’s good to be reminded that sometimes the person for whom we’re writing can simply be ourselves.
Have a very happy and peaceful Christmas and New Year, thank you for your wit and wisdom in 2021, and see you in 2022! May next year be a tad less ‘interesting’ (using the term in the way the old Chinese curse uses it).
I really want to thank you, Harry, and the people at Jericho for providing sanity and normalcy throughout this insane pandemic, and for the writing support, and the Summer Festival … thank you for all of it!
I write for the simple joy of creating and improving my craft. I love imagining new worlds and dumping characters into messes. I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which really limits my energy. As a result, I’ve shied away from being a self-pub author. I hope to find an agent or a small publishing house for my novels, but until then, I shall write because I love it. Plus, my writing friends are awesome people so what more can I want than their friendship, encouragement and brilliant brainstorming?
Merry Christmas to you and yours, Harry, and everyone at Jericho. May everyone’s writing wishes come true in 2022!
Totally agree, good luck to us all
I’ll tell you what want, what I really really want….. my mum auditioned for the Spice Girls, she was gonna be Old Spice.
I kind of gotten myself into a funk these past 6 months, rejection emails from agents (boo-hoo) sort took the wind out of my sails abit. I was on a bus heading to Funksville and I didn’t have enough money for the return fare home.
I’d got 2 manuscripts done, a 2 book, 1 story thing going on. Slaved over these things for many years really pushing myself to write something that was right out of my comfort zone. Serious fiction, not something people who know me would expect from me. I edited and re-edited, chopped great big chunks out to tighten the storyline up. And still I got the old – “good idea, just not right for me” reply. Plus, I was about 40,000 words or so in to what I consider to be the 3rd and final part of a trilogy (but we never say never right?).
Oh what can I do? Well, for a couple of years I’ve had this idea sloshing around in the space generally reserved for brain activity, an idea that is more in keeping with the kind of stuff I tend to read – comedy meets sci-fi (probably in a bar somewhere on the edge of reality and they get totally wasted and then no doubt go for a curry afterwards).
Every so often a random thought pops into my head, and if it makes me burst out laughing, it’s a keeper and I jot it down for future reference. About 2 months ago, I began looking at all these notes I’d jotted down and there was a kind of plot, character names, places, some great one-liners and lots of smut and innuendo, and thought, why not see where this goes. So I started hammering away on the keyboard. I have had a lot of fun, maybe too much fun, but it rekindled my desire to write. A workmate asked what it was about and I replied “Imagine if the Monty Python team had written Star Wars and not George Lucas, then throw in a bucket of Carry-On double entendres, a sprinkling of The Goon Shows and you’re probably in the the same postcode as the storyline. No idea when I’ll finish this story, but I’m enjoying the journey so much right now. I’m in a happy place and the nurses say nice things to me when they come round with my medication.
All I can say is that it is definitely not a childrens book, and probably not suitable for anyone under 35. If it was a Carry-On film it would be called “Carry-On Up Uranus” or something equally smutty.
Thanks, Harry. Best wishes to you and your family for a magical holiday season, which is well deserved.
The wisdom you share is appreciated. I love to write. And now after a year of research, my goal is to write many chapters in 2022.
Again, thank you! Enjoy this special time with your family.
I look forward to reading your posts next year.
There is a very affordable book of them . . . .re-reading them nightly right now