Most of us start out writing because we feel a yearning, a call, a really strong desire to be a writer.
We have stories inside us burning to be told. We see the world in a slightly different way, and we want to share how we see people and events, all wrapped up in a spell-binding story.
Then What Happens?
Somewhere along the way, I’ve noticed, the calling often becomes a career mindset. It might happen with the first sale, or it might not happen until years into publication. With me, it happened after I’d had two or three novels published by Atheneum. Status became more important than telling a good story.
Warning: this can happen to you too! Be aware of the signs and what can trigger it.
A Common Story
With me, it was financial need. It was the 80s during the farm crisis, and we were in danger of losing our Iowa farm. Suddenly sales were crucial. Advances had to be bigger and bigger. I began to worry more about whether I needed an agent than if my current book was better than the last one. Achieving excellence took a back seat to making money.
I wish I had seen it coming. Getting back to your calling-your love of storytelling-is a lot harder than maintaining it in the first place.
An Agent’s Perspective
Literary agent and author Donald Maass (in The Fire in Fiction) suggests that writers are either those who desire to be published, or those who desire to tell stories. They may start out the same, committed to making it as writer, to being the best storyteller he/she can be. He says that over time a writer’s real motivation will emerge.
Admittedly, I took the ICL course with a hopeful eye of staying home with my children and having a career too. But did that necessarily mean that I had to change from being a storyteller to a status seeker? No, I don’t think so. I think your calling and career can co-exist within you-but only if you guard your writer’s heart carefully.
What needs to stay in the forefront? A pursuit of excellence, for one thing. Keeping the writing fun for another.
Warning Signs
What are some signs that you’re moving from a storyteller to a status seeker? Maass gives some insightful signs:
- The majority of status seeker writers seek agents and publication years too soon.
- When rejected by an agent, the status seeker writer immediately offers the agent something else from his desk drawer. (Not something better-just something else.)
- Status seekers grow frustrated with rejections, thinking landing an agent is a matter of luck. Storytellers know that something is missing from their writing and they work on it.
- Status seekers ask how they can just make their stories good enough to sell. A storyteller is more concerned with making his story the very best it can be.
- With a first contract status seekers are very concerned with what they are getting for blurbs, advertising and promotion. Storytellers have a more realistic grasp of retail realities; they promote some, but then get to work on the next book.
- Status seekers go full time too soon, relying on advances for their living. Storytellers keep their day jobs for as long as it takes.
More details are given in his book to distingui
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