Disclaimer: This isn’t meant to be egotistical.
I decided to dedicate myself to writing seriously in 2007 when I had some unsolicited attention in my work based on the strength of a reading. (This would later result in, among other things, my book deal with Cats Curious.) I figured if more people than my mom thought I was a good writer, I should be getting serious about my efforts. AND I had nibbles. I’m that person an agent asks to send a few chapters, and then decides, you know, it was good writing, but it’s not for me. Yup. Me and 200,000,000 other writers. I had some idea that my writing was good, and it wasn’t just me and my immediate circle who thought so.
Hence, frustration. If I *was* a good writer, why wasn’t the whole publication thing going down?
Viable Paradise provided me with my first clue. Everyone there was a pretty darned good writer. We were, we were told, the top percent of the slush pile. It dawned on me that becoming a writer was a lot like going to Iowa State.
When I was a kid, I grew up in teeny Murray Iowa. There were 700 people there. When college recruiters asked if I was in the top 5 percent of my class, I joked that I was the top 5 percent of my class.
Getting to Iowa State, a campus where there were 26,000 students? Was I intimidated? No. It was wonderful! I met so many creative, intellectual, fantastic people, many of whom could be reading this journal right now, one of whom I had to take home with me and marry. I thrived and blossomed at Iowa State with people who were like me, and yeah, I’d do that again.
So…suddenly I began to conceive of writing as a communal activity. I had already been hanging out on the Internet and discovering that published writers were generous with their time and advice. I was also meeting people who were doing what I was: good writers producing work trying to get published. Writing became not this thing I did competitively with others, but gradually it become an activity I shared with others who were doing it for a variety of reasons as well.
I like being part of a group of writers. We support each others success, critique, encourage, and succor. It’s a lot less lonely. I also understand that this isn’t a zero sum game. This is more about people who have the same goal working in the same direction. I also understand that since there’s a lot of good writers, you have to do something much better than you would do as a good writer to stand out. It’s like hanging out with your college buddies all over again. I will be gratified when we are all doing what we enjoy at the level we want to get to, or at least if we’re working toward that.
Next: Perfect Practice Makes Perfect, or treating your writer education like college, in spite of writer ego.
