You want to be a writer. Oh my gosh. The question that could save you time, grief and money. And it’s so easy to ask it. “Is a fiction writing career for you?” Does a career like this even exist anymore?
I suppose if English lit and creative writing courses continue to exist (and I hope they expand), the siren’s call to write the next bestseller will live among those who choose to answer it.
So, you have a choice, a decision to be made and it didn’t cost you a dime should you choose correctly given your current circumstances. Notice the loaded copywriter’s key words in The Question? “Save.” “Easy.” Who doesn’t want to save time, effort and money?
It doesn’t cost anything to ask the question, but the answer may be a different story. Mired in indecisiveness, with self-worth issues, and a forced honest assessment of the publishing climate and writing talent, wrapped in life’s big questions, such as “What is my purpose?” “What am I good at?” and “What if I fail?” the cost could be considerable to mental health and personal wealth.
Again, depending on these considerations, choosing Door #1 could be the golden ticket to fame and fortune, which assumes talent and luck, or Door #2 could be a black spiral down the rabbit hole. You win nothing. As a matter of fact, you lose. High expectations with a promising talent can net a big zero. How long will the charade continue before the bank account is drained and relationships are damaged? The odds of penning a best-seller are well-known. What is behind Door #3 would be a gift for most people, though not the literary gold ticket.
"Writing [those] words on a substrate and showing them to another person, with no words spoken, and receiving comprehension is pure magic."
Opportunities everywhere
Depending on your personality-type, your developing stage of writing talent and personal responsibilities, this door allows a writer the freedom to write somewhere within the 24-hour clock and gives you the time to develop your skills and understand the current publishing environment, which is always changing.
Maybe at this time in your life, you shouldn’t be writing fiction at all, at least not trying to make a living from it. Or maybe you should choose a different path, literary or not. Chances are though, you can earn money in a job that has opportunities to write, maybe on a consistent basis. Not everyone can write—not even AI-assisted. Because of that, maybe nobody thought about doing a newsletter, a PR piece for the business that can be a sales tool to increase the bottom line. Writing opportunities exist everywhere. You get to practice cognitive skills and become more valuable to your organization.
My first bylines were part of my job as a land management wildlife biologist with the Missouri Dept. of Conservation. I had a monthly newspaper column, radio show and contributed infrequently to the monthly Missouri Conservationist magazine, where I got my first experience working with an editor. I’m not counting my high school sports editor position for the Bulldog Growl. I don’t remember much about that position, but I do remember the intense newsroom atmosphere, trying to meet the deadline for our local daily paper, where we did the school paper layouts. There’s a point to this walk down memory lane.
Pure magic, taken for granted
I have been a writer my whole life, from the time I could conjugate sentences. With public education a state law requirement for children, we’ve grown complacent, if not ungrateful, for those opportunities our taxpayers have given us and continue to provide for the future generations. Literacy is such an incredible gift. Taking words of a spoken language to communicate by our mouths, ears or hands is one thing. Writing those words on a substrate and showing them to another person, with no words spoken, and receiving comprehension is pure magic.
This awakening came to light when I saw the 1991 film The Black Robe, directed by Bruce Beresford. The Jesuit priest, called “The Black Robe,” by a fierce Huron tribe of Indians, thought he practiced black magic when he could communicate with another Indian, simply by writing down some instructions on an animal skin without uttering a word or making sign language. It looked like the message recipient was able to read the writer’s mind, a frightening spectacle to the Indian chief. To read for comprehension—to write, to be understood. It really is magic.
You are already a writer
Those of us who are literate (and today that comes with a false assumption that everyone is), and practice these skills every day, considering emails, texting, written proposals, online posting, scheduling, thank you notes, etc., the daily output for most of us, we are writers in the broadest sense. We are writers everyday of something. Since not everybody can write, most of this output results in poor communication, lacking clarity, critical thinking bullet points, humor, when needed, etc.
My bio is on my website. I have had seven “careers” in my lifetime. Many of those job skills overlapped, much to my satisfaction. I could not have gotten anywhere without my communication, people skills and work ethic. University degrees had nothing to do with any success I may have achieved, other than my first career, which only lasted almost four years. Sales and marketing are where the action has always been because nothing—absolutely nothing happens without a dollar changing hands in a fair exchange and that takes a strong underpinning of reading and writing.
". . . you will learn how to craft short, punchy news with a local reader audience numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands, who will shower you with accolades on a weekly basis."
To close this out, I spent the next 20-plus years in sales and marketing, propped up by good communication skills, learning new cultural experiences working in different countries. I read little fiction during this time, needing to stay current with the business world. I traveled lots for business, living for about a decade in Italy, in a long-term relationship with an Italian woman from Naples. I Though not fluent, I had to speak some of the local Western European languages to conduct business; but thank heavens for the English education in many European schools. It is, after all, the language of business throughout the world. Not that it is spoken everywhere, but it sure helps when you must get things done with the locals.
I needed to come back to the family farm to take care of long-term family business, so I had to wind my international business down and create something local. Making a long story short, I wound up in magazine-newspaper management and editing for the next ten years. I became a journalist. Hello daily deadlines.
Consider life as a journalist
The newspaper/journal business is tough, and for many, those publications moved online to outlets such as personal websites or Substack. There are however many small-town newspapers still in operation, seeking talent, and this is where I was able to pick up the writing thread and make some money doing it.
For any budding writer who has the personal freedom to pick up and contribute to a local community newspaper, you will gain quite an education. If you like fiction writing you will also like news reporting and crafting feature stories. You write about real people with real emotions. You will dissect scenes through cause-and-effect reporting, possibly describing complex situations and timelines. You will be getting first-hand knowledge and see court trials, drug busts, witness small town heroes in action and understand how city governments operate.
You’re limited only by your creativity, and you will learn how to craft short, punchy news with a local reader audience numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands, who will shower you with accolades on a weekly basis. Talk about a life with purpose, even if only for a few years! You have readers! Lots of readers!
"The beautiful part is you are practicing being a success on any level you want to judge that."
I’ll talk more about that in another post, but for now, I’ll just say it honed my skills to move into fiction writing.
I spent the next three years learning the basics of fiction writing to where I completed my first novel last October, which was about 4 months of character development, plotting, additional research, etc. and a little over two months of actual writing the first draft. I’m about through with revisions, the beta reader process and am now entering the query journey to find an agent.
After what I’ve been though in the entertainment business, and the course of doing business the last 30 years, rejections are not only expected, but a time-saver to get to someone who really likes my book and thinks they can sell it. If they don’t turn up in a year, I’ll gladly self-publish—total control, a greater percentage of the sales proceeds and meeting my own schedule. I win either way.
The whole enchilada
Here’s the take-a-way: You already are a writer. Maybe not a developed writer, because this is a craft that takes years of practice; but if you are putting words on a screen or paper, you’re a writer. Can you commit to the time it takes to write a novel at this point in your life and still provide for yourself and possibly others? Only you can answer that. As to life’s big questions, just keep moving. Life experiences make the writer. Keep your commitments, network with people, earn your living whether it is what you want to do for the rest of your life or not. Learn something new in everything you do. The beautiful part is you are practicing being a success on any level you want to judge that. Keep your options open but remain responsible. Maintain a good reputation. All your experiences will come back to haunt you in a good way, adding to the treasure trove of emotions and memories that can make for great fiction writing.