Dark Night of the Soul is a good way of putting it. I've been going through that myself. It began when I became finally disenchanted with the state of the publishing industry. The last thing I ever wanted to do was to self-publish. But I came to realize that the publishing industry I was trying to break into had died twenty years before. Equally, over those twenty years, self-publishing had moved from being simply a form of vanity press to being a form of rebellion. So I did what I hope was the rebellions thing, rather than the vain thing, and published the four finished books I had on hand. I felt at the time that I had too much finished work clogging up my mental workshop and that once it was cleared out, it would make room for new work. That didn't really happen. I brought out the four books, making a complete hash of the marketing, but new work did not come. Then my sister died in January, a reminder, apart from anything else, that all our projects are subject to abrupt cancellation at a time not our choosing. It is only in the last month that I have done any serious or substantial fiction writing again. It is a different book, set in a different time period, and what I shall do about publication, once it is finished, is something I an honestly conflicted about. In the meantime, thought, I have made my complaint about the current state of publishing, and now it is probably time to move on from it.
I think a lot of us would benefit from major upsets in book publishing - not because we’re better than current authors but because we’re different. But that’s something we can’t really control. And if I learned anything from my own sojourn through the dark night, it’s that we should never force ourselves to abandon the stories we’ve been given to write. So that’s not something we can control, either. Perhaps I’m fatalistic, but I don’t see a way to maintain artistic integrity while also writing to the market.
That having been said, there are two more things to consider. The first is some advice I heard a few years ago: every book should go through 3 major phases - the Author draft, where you write exactly what you want, the Artifact draft, where you revise it to make it objectively the best story it can be, and the Audience draft, when you finally target it to an audience. Maybe part of being a storyteller is acknowledging that we start stories but we don’t finish them. Our readers do.
And the second is more encouraging: we must recognize that the greatest works of fiction often broke all the rules and surprised everyone. Perhaps our rebellion against the status quo will be exactly what makes our books flourish.
Yes, and on that score it is important to remember that the market is a construct of the publishing industry, not an expression of the native taste of readers. McDonalds did not thrive because it perceived that billions of people craved identical hamburgers. It thrived because it trained billions of people to expect identical hamburgers. That does not mean there isn't still a taste for a steak and a good bottle of wine. Targeting the audience and targeting the market are two very different things.
Good point. And we should also remember that authors don’t always have to bend for the sake of publishers; sometimes it’s the other way around. Anthony Ryan self-published his first fantasy novel, but when he sold over 50,000 copies, a publisher approached him and made an offer. Now he’s traditionally published. This proves that they have their eyes open. It’s just a matter of finding your audience, which is the hard part (despite the advent of the internet).
Oh, indeed. The vice of the modern publishing industry is that it is entirely mercenary. But it is also the virtue of the modern publishing industry is that it is entirely mercenary. Bring a lucrative audience to them and they will happily act as the middle man and not try to make your steak into hamburger, which is exactly what they will try to do to you if you come to them without an audience.
Thanks for this post, and thank you for launching what turned out to be an interesting conversation. I'm sorry to hear you've hit a lull with your writing but that happens to every writer I think. (I'm in a bit of a lull at the moment myself and I'm pretty sure we'll both get over it.) It's just my opinion but "memorizing...scrutinizing...taking in videos and podcasts...conferences...analyzing chapters, etc." might be slightly useful in small doses, but too much research can be stifling. At least I find it so. Joan Didion said, "I write to find out what I think." She was a journalist, but I think that idea resonates with fiction just as much. Writing fiction involves sensations and ideas that are part of the inner life we carry with us. My fiction's fueled by daydreams that, if I never wrote them down, would waft away like smoke. For me the thing is to write as much as I have time to. When I can't seem to write, the sorts of research you mentioned might be a nice distraction but not much more. Reading's important though. Reading, "classic OR modern," is like P.E. class for the scrawny language centers of my weak and feeble brain.
That’s a good way of putting it. Any time spent learning the craft is useful, but not all of it is equally useful. And I know I’m guilty of reading articles and watching videos about writing when I should just have my fingers to the keys.
Dark Night of the Soul is a good way of putting it. I've been going through that myself. It began when I became finally disenchanted with the state of the publishing industry. The last thing I ever wanted to do was to self-publish. But I came to realize that the publishing industry I was trying to break into had died twenty years before. Equally, over those twenty years, self-publishing had moved from being simply a form of vanity press to being a form of rebellion. So I did what I hope was the rebellions thing, rather than the vain thing, and published the four finished books I had on hand. I felt at the time that I had too much finished work clogging up my mental workshop and that once it was cleared out, it would make room for new work. That didn't really happen. I brought out the four books, making a complete hash of the marketing, but new work did not come. Then my sister died in January, a reminder, apart from anything else, that all our projects are subject to abrupt cancellation at a time not our choosing. It is only in the last month that I have done any serious or substantial fiction writing again. It is a different book, set in a different time period, and what I shall do about publication, once it is finished, is something I an honestly conflicted about. In the meantime, thought, I have made my complaint about the current state of publishing, and now it is probably time to move on from it.
I think a lot of us would benefit from major upsets in book publishing - not because we’re better than current authors but because we’re different. But that’s something we can’t really control. And if I learned anything from my own sojourn through the dark night, it’s that we should never force ourselves to abandon the stories we’ve been given to write. So that’s not something we can control, either. Perhaps I’m fatalistic, but I don’t see a way to maintain artistic integrity while also writing to the market.
That having been said, there are two more things to consider. The first is some advice I heard a few years ago: every book should go through 3 major phases - the Author draft, where you write exactly what you want, the Artifact draft, where you revise it to make it objectively the best story it can be, and the Audience draft, when you finally target it to an audience. Maybe part of being a storyteller is acknowledging that we start stories but we don’t finish them. Our readers do.
And the second is more encouraging: we must recognize that the greatest works of fiction often broke all the rules and surprised everyone. Perhaps our rebellion against the status quo will be exactly what makes our books flourish.
Yes, and on that score it is important to remember that the market is a construct of the publishing industry, not an expression of the native taste of readers. McDonalds did not thrive because it perceived that billions of people craved identical hamburgers. It thrived because it trained billions of people to expect identical hamburgers. That does not mean there isn't still a taste for a steak and a good bottle of wine. Targeting the audience and targeting the market are two very different things.
Good point. And we should also remember that authors don’t always have to bend for the sake of publishers; sometimes it’s the other way around. Anthony Ryan self-published his first fantasy novel, but when he sold over 50,000 copies, a publisher approached him and made an offer. Now he’s traditionally published. This proves that they have their eyes open. It’s just a matter of finding your audience, which is the hard part (despite the advent of the internet).
Oh, indeed. The vice of the modern publishing industry is that it is entirely mercenary. But it is also the virtue of the modern publishing industry is that it is entirely mercenary. Bring a lucrative audience to them and they will happily act as the middle man and not try to make your steak into hamburger, which is exactly what they will try to do to you if you come to them without an audience.
Thanks for this post, and thank you for launching what turned out to be an interesting conversation. I'm sorry to hear you've hit a lull with your writing but that happens to every writer I think. (I'm in a bit of a lull at the moment myself and I'm pretty sure we'll both get over it.) It's just my opinion but "memorizing...scrutinizing...taking in videos and podcasts...conferences...analyzing chapters, etc." might be slightly useful in small doses, but too much research can be stifling. At least I find it so. Joan Didion said, "I write to find out what I think." She was a journalist, but I think that idea resonates with fiction just as much. Writing fiction involves sensations and ideas that are part of the inner life we carry with us. My fiction's fueled by daydreams that, if I never wrote them down, would waft away like smoke. For me the thing is to write as much as I have time to. When I can't seem to write, the sorts of research you mentioned might be a nice distraction but not much more. Reading's important though. Reading, "classic OR modern," is like P.E. class for the scrawny language centers of my weak and feeble brain.
That’s a good way of putting it. Any time spent learning the craft is useful, but not all of it is equally useful. And I know I’m guilty of reading articles and watching videos about writing when I should just have my fingers to the keys.