Today’s article is written by regular contributor Christi Craig.
The road to publication is a winding, twisting path.
Whether you aim to see your work in print or online, listed in the pages of the journal of your dreams, or mentioned in the New York Times, you’re likely to encounter detours and experience days when it seems this writing gig is all too much like a never-ending road trip.
I don’t do well on long trips. Put me in the car for more than five hours and I grow restless. I tire easily, and tiny inconveniences becomes reasons why I should have just stayed home. I blame it on a touch of claustrophobia, but really, I’m just impatient and worry I’ll never reach my destination.
It’s the same when I pursue bigger, long-term writing goals. If I get side-tracked from working on the novel or that short story I really want to finish, I turn to sighing, complaining, blaming time constraints. Often, though, contrary to how I feel, detours and slow-moving days do not always mean I have fallen off track or lost my way.
Detours
When I first committed to writing on a regular basis, my one and only goal was to publish a novel: the first draft, the revisions, the book in print. Boom. Then I started a blog and wrote a few short stories. I joined Facebook and Twitter. I began interviewing published authors. Sure, I was having fun, but, as my time spent on the novel became less and less, I worried all the blogging and social networking and short fiction couldn’t possibly get me to the finish line.
However, the more I followed other writers and authors, and the more short stories I submitted, the more knowledge I picked up on the structure of novels, the keys to editing, and the ins and outs of the craft and the business—lessons I couldn’t have learned with my head deep in one marathon project.
Matthew Salesses touches on how these kinds of detours carry us forward in our journey as writer and author, and ultimately help us attain bigger goals. In his essay in this month’s Glimmer Train Bulletin, Salesses details how saying yes to one small project led him to the completion of his novel.
“Being open to opportunities […] is part of participating in the literary community, I think. My novel would not have existed without that community. It is a book written-on-demand.”
Agreeing to write one flash fiction piece, Salesses ended up writing several short shorts, which later developed into a full manuscript.
My participation in the “literary community” hasn’t gotten me to The End of my novel yet, but it has provided me with crucial connections and opportunities that have strengthened my writing profile and improved my craft. Those are detours I wouldn’t have wanted to miss, as a strong profile and a better understanding of the work can only help me in the end.
Long Days and Driving in Reverse
Moving forward in this profession doesn’t happen in leaps and bounds. Progress is slow and often we feel as if we’re moving backwards.
I recently felt the pain of sliding into reverse when I took a short-story-in-progress (one I’d rewritten several times over) to my writing group. Positive this story was close to done, I expected feedback on polishing it for submission. What I discovered through very well-thought-out comments, was that this particular story was far from submission-ready. Driving home that night, I questioned my ability and wondered, if I couldn’t bring a short story to better completion, how would I ever finish something as big as a novel? I thought for sure I’d lost all quality in my writing.
Maybe I had. Maybe, momentarily, I’d taken a few steps backwards.
Even so, every step—forward or back—is a sign of progress.
This lesson became clear to me when I attended a keynote address at a conference for my day job (talk about a detour).
The keynote speaker was a colleague of mine, wise in her experience and clear on her perspective about our work as sign language interpreters. In the interpreting world, much like in the world of writing, learning never ends. Language, in its essence, evolves and changes so that, no matter our time in the profession, we must constantly seek to improve our skill. And interpreters, like writers, often take two steps forward and three steps back when it comes to professional development. We have good days and bad days and long days. Her point, then, was that as long as we’re moving in some direction, we are growing.
For me, a move backwards points to a lesson still unlearned, to some aspect of the craft or some door not yet opened that, once realized, pushes me to become a better writer.
Complacency in writing, then, is the real evil, not which direction we are headed.
How have you moved your writing to a new place today?
I love that you say even an occasional step backward is progress, Christi. Sometimes we need to step back in order to behold the big picture, and to choose the best angle of renewed attack. Been there! Great overall metaphor. Keep on keepin’ on, my friend!
That’s a great way to look at it, Vaughn, to see the bigger picture, figure out a new way to approach a challenge/story. Loved your most recent post, by the way.
Couldn’t agree more with everything you say. I’ve had my share of steps back, and while I was going through it I was too close and too discouraged to realize what valuable lessons I was learning. But the great thing about those steps back is that the next ones going forward are such huge victories as a result.
Boy, I love this perspective, Natalia. I’ll be keeping this in mind the next time I feel like I’m sliding backwards, watching for that huge jump forward in the end. Thanks for your comment!
Your words, “a move backwards points to a lesson still unlearned” really struck me as true and something I experience also. I often feel I have so much to learn and relearn about writing. I too have a novel in the works but have become a blogger and also do some freelance writing. Often I find myself with projects pulling me in different directions, many times away from my novel. I feel guilty for not slogging away at novel revision, but I learn so much from the other aspects of my writing life. Thanks for letting me know I am not alone feeling like I am backsliding for not finishing up my novel, and for validating my blogging and other aspects of the writing life. All movement forward and back and all writing prepares us for the the writing we will ultimately do and for the improvement in the quality of our work, and will (I hope) lead to finishing the novels we have worked on for so long! Thanks again!
Thanks for your comment, Shannon. You’re definitely not alone! I love how the Internet and blogs serve us as writers, connecting us and – like you say – validating the work we do and helping us avoid any guilt about the work not yet finished.
Great post, Christi–lots of wisdom here. Writing short fiction is more important than ever, and one of the best ways to build your platform, so major kudos for putting so much energy into it..
It’s always 2 steps forward and a step back in this business.
We all need to know where we are in our writing journey. Some people grind out a NaNoWriMo novel and think they should be suddenly at the top of the profession and get the same props as Stephen King or Margaret Atwood. They get awfully disappointed. Learning the craft and business of publishing is a long journey indeed. It’s good to be aware of where you are on that road.
Very well said, Anne. I love NaNoWriMo, but you’re right. It’s easy to get caught up in the frenzy at the end and think, “I’m done! I’m done! Where my agent?….” 🙂
I think, Christi, that this is one of those articles I want to keep to reread for whenever I’m faced with one too many detours. Finding writing lessons in each sidestep is both a gift and an art. Thank you for writing about this not-so-easy yet definitely rewarding writing journey.
I’m so glad the post was helpful, Beth. Thanks for your comment.
Christi, how true is your line: “Moving forward in this profession doesn’t happen in leaps and bounds. Progress is slow and often we feel as if we’re moving backwards.”
I’ve fast come to the conclusion that in writing, one must love the journey more than the destination, and once we stop loving the writing, we should cease to continue with it. As if we’d ever stop loving writing! There are days though when we want to ‘strangle’ it, however…
Great article, thanks for sharing!
Yes, love the journey. Hear, hear!
Christi, this is such a thoughtful essay, and I relate completely to your sense of being overwhelmed by long projects of any kind and needing to focus on whatever task is in front of my nose.
This is perfect: “every step—forward or back—is a sign of progress.”
Have you watched Steve Jobs’ commencement address to Stanford? He talked about how we can’t connect the dots of our lives going forward, we can only connect them in hindsight. What you wrote here is in keeping with that idea. Thanks very much for just the right start to my day.
Lisa, I have seen Steve Jobs’ commencement speech, but it’s worth watching again. Thanks for mentioning it!
You read about people who approach writing “like a job” and grind out pages no matter what–even to the point where they write “crap,” then delete it all away the next day. Works for some people, I guess. Me, I don’t worry about fallow periods any more. I often realize after a few days of distraction or whatever that I probably wouldn’t have been as productive if I had forced myself to write what I wasn’t ready to write.
Not saying this is what everyone should do. But when I was a newspaper reporter, there was always that big project on my to-do list that I put off and put off until I had to do it. And, invariably, it worked out because something happened in the news that made the story more relevant than it would have been if I had done it earlier. That may be just good luck–but it may also be instinct. Now that I write novels, I remind myself of those stories when I have a down day or two.
Dave,
Great point. I’ve had those moments, too, when – after putting off a project – everything comes together, so unexpectedly but so beautifully. Thanks for this reminder.
I echo everyones’s words especially Shannon’s about feeling guilty for not slogging away on my novel while other projects rise to the top. Thank you Christi, this post is a keeper.
Yes, no guilt! Thanks for your comment, Christine.
“Even so, every step—forward or back—is a sign of progress”–what a great thing to remember. Thank you for this timely-for-me post. I will mark it so that I can come back to reread it when I get discouraged about my seeming lack of progress.
Thank you for sharing this insight, Christi. I tend to get discouraged so easily, feeling I should have learned more, progressed farther, completed three times as many projects by this point. But I’m still moving, so I guess I’m still on track.
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