What do you want from your writing life?
There was a time I nearly gave up on publishing. And this wasn’t before I got a deal - it was as an experienced, best-selling writer.
This post is based on a session I ran last week at the CWIG (Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group) conference. It’s an exercise that really helped me, at a time when I was not loving publishing.
To be clear, I love writing. I just don’t always love publishing. The process of taking something creative, something that you made with your heart, and turning it into a commercial, saleable, product is difficult. And the publishing industry isn’t known for its author care (to say the least).
A few years back, after I lost my mum in covid times, publishing felt too tough, and I wondered whether to give up. So, I sat myself down and asked myself some questions about my writing life. I asked:
What do I want my writing to bring me: practically, emotionally and creatively?
At the conference, I asked this question to fifty writers/illustrators in a room. I was interested to hear if the elements were the same for all of us. Did we want income, a sense of achievement, a purpose, projects, joy?
(You might want to stop here and jot down a few ideas of your own.)
This is what the attendees wanted from writing:
It’s a wonderful list, and I recognise every element the participants raised. Interestingly, nobody mentioned income. Although I suspect that was perhaps due to the mindset we were in. I certainly do need it for income, even if I didn’t list that element.
When I did my own list a few years ago, I wrote down pretty much all of the above elements, which leads me to raise an obvious point:
That is A LOT to ask of one career.
When I was a lawyer, I did not expect my career to provide me with all that. I did not ask for income plus connection plus creativity plus joy and all the rest. I went to work, did my job, went home and stressed about it. I had other elements in my life that satisfied my need for creativity.
But, when I made my list all those years ago, I found that I was expecting writing to give me everything on it. That expectation had placed a huge amount of pressure on my work. It also made it hard to measure success. When am I ‘enough’? How many elements have to be ticked off before I’ve ‘achieved’?
So, I began to think of ways to release the pressure. This isn’t to say that I lowered my ambitions for my writing. I still want my books to do well. But I went through every item on the list and thought about what other parts of my life I could change to meet each need.
To increase my creativity, I began to paint more.
To increase my income, I took in language students.
For connection, I joined the Society of Author’s committee groups.
And bit by bit, I found that I wasn’t expecting my writing to fill every part of me. I started to cherish the things I love about writing: the freedom to work anywhere, the wonder of the process, meeting readers. And I realise what I get from writing is ‘enough’.
It is enough that I get joy from the process.
It is enough that I’ve been able to shape a life for myself that I love.
It is enough that I still want to write.
What about you? What do you want your writing to bring you: practically, emotionally and creatively?
I love this post and this way of looking at writing as a fulfilling career. I think just like we shouldn't expect to have all of our needs met from one relationship, neither should we expect them all to be met from one thing.
This is such an excellent article. I'm hoping that finding other creative outlets will help my writing which has stalled slightly in the first editing stage. I think the stall is directly related to the process feeling more like work now I'm in the editing stages.