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| Photo credit: Johan Larsson on Flickr |
Today I’d like to talk about the opposite end of the
spectrum—the myths that many of us, especially early in our writing careers,
have probably fallen for or perhaps are even still tempted to believe. These
myths are created by Hollywood, by too much news coverage of the exceptions, by
well-intentioned hopes, overly-optimistic dreams and inexperience.
But these myths are just that—myths—and although they sound
nice on paper, the sooner we accept that they aren’t real, the better.
The Writing Myths:
1. The overnight
success story. Nathan Bransford wrote a really
fantastic post covering this myth much more succinctly than I could, but
the overnight success stories that you hear about all so very often are largely
lies. Writing a book takes time—months, sometimes years—and chances are the
first book that you publish won’t be the first book you ever write (more on
that later). It takes time to hone your craft, to learn the ins and outs of
writing, to develop your voice and learn how to write a solid plot and then
learn the proper way to market it all when you’ve finished. J.K. Rowling spent
years planning out and writing Harry
Potter and received dozens of rejections before getting published. Amanda
Hocking also spent years building her craft and receiving rejection letters
before making it big in the self-publishing world. The list goes on, but in
short, don’t believe the overnight success story.
2. Your debut novel = your first novel. No.
I mentioned this in first bullet, but nine out of ten times,
your first novel will not be your
debut novel. Debut is a tricky word, because it sounds like it’d be your first novel ever and when publishers
announce an author’s “first” novel, it often sounds like it’s the first one the author has ever written but with
few exceptions, that’s largely not the case. “Debut novel” means the first
novel that you’ve ever gotten published. It’s your debut into the world of
published writers—it’s usually not
the first novel you’ve ever written. Chances are the first and second and maybe
even third and fourth novels you’ve ever written are going to be sitting in a
drawer somewhere when you get your “first” book published. It varies from
writer to writer, but it usually takes more than a single manuscript to really
hone your novel-writing skills.
3. All the author
needs to do is write a book. That’s a nice thought—but not quite. Authors
write books, then edit, then rewrite, then edit more, then they market their
books—whether it’s on Facebook or Twitter or tumblr or book tours or
YouTube—all the while working on the next book, and reading other books, and
trying not to entirely disappear from the social media world while buried under
a heap of editor notes.
And that’s not even getting into just how difficult it is to
write a book in the first place.
4. Authors do
everything alone. Rachelle Gardner wrote a fantastic post on the
help that traditionally published authors receive, but in short,
traditionally published or not, authors absolutely do not do everything alone. We get help from readers and editors and
book designers and agents and marketing specialists and copyeditors because it
takes a lot more than just one person to write a book and get it out there.
Writers can’t do everything alone, and the great part is that we don’t need to.
There are others out there willing and able to help—we just have to go out
there and find them.
5. After publishing
one book, money starts raining on the author. I think most of us know this
isn’t true, but especially nowadays I think it’s important we accept this one.
Yes, there are always exceptions—we’ve all heard about the
debut authors who start off with a bang and immediately jump into the New York
Times Bestsellers list, with a very nice advance sitting in their bank account.
It happens.
But by and large, it doesn’t happen. In today’s world,
advances are shrinking and publishers are more careful. An author’s career
(regardless of how successful they were with their debut) isn’t based on just
one novel—it’s a combination of every novel they ever publish and for most of
us, it’ll be a slow climb. There’s a reason so many authors have a second (and
sometimes third) job, and it’s not just because they’re bored sitting at home.
Writing takes time. Publishing takes time. Making a living
off of writing usually takes a lot of
time.
So those are my five writing myths. What would you add to the list?
