Tag: inspiration

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Craft

But Do You Love It More Than Showers?

Listen, just you and me now, some real talk about this industry of writing and publishing fiction. This is not about why you should write; it’s about WHY YOU ARE WRITING.

I had an author friend of mine, many years ago say “You have to love it more than showers.” And people teased her for saying that. She didn’t mean it literally, obviously it’s a metaphor.

But it underscores a very, very important truth that I want all of you to grasp and understand and inhabit:

You have to love this if you want to do it on a professional level.

(This is my lived reality, yours may be very different.)

The reality is you do have to love this. You have to make this your life ambition. If you can see yourself doing something else for 40 hours a week or more, then you should probably go do that thing.

Golf or macrame or surfing or sewing or walking dogs or doing comic books or playing fucking role playing games or video games or talking about science or…

The thing that you get up in the morning and say, oh, I get to go do this. That is the thing you should pursue. If that thing isn’t writing, if that thing isn’t publishing, if that thing isn’t going indie or going trad or trying to do a hybrid, then…

Don’t.

I’ve said this in multiple ways on multiple platforms and I’m going to keep banging this drum because fundamentally my goal at FictionMentor isn’t necessarily for you to write the best book you can. (We will talk about that. I will make videos and I will post blogs and I will do all that shit to help you write the best book you can. Absolutely. I want you to do that.)

But I only want you to do it in the context of, is there something else you want to be doing? Because if there is, go fucking do that. I give you permission to go pursue the thing you want.

Because my brothers and sisters, this is the only shot you get. This is your only life. And what I do not want to see is you spending a year or two years or 10 years or 50 years on this fucking 10-book fucking series or whatever. And it never goes anywhere and it just sits on your hard drive. You never try to do anything with it. Or if you do, it just fails completely because your metric for success wasn’t met (which is a completely different topic).

And now what? Like, if that was time you could have spent playing tennis and that’s what really revs your engine, then go play tennis. Go do that.

The thing about “you have to love it more than showers,” again, metaphorically here, is that is the level of commitment that it takes to make this work…based on your metric of success.

That’s the other thing that we need to talk about. What is your metric of success? I’m only just now figuring mine. After decades of doing the work, I’m just now starting to piece it together. What do you actually want from this? Is using finance the best way to gauge whether a project is successful or not? Because maybe it’s not.

Maybe my only metric for this particular project is did I like it? Did I have fun doing it?

Let’s pretend I get an unseemly amount of money for a licensing deal. Cool. You know what I’m gonna do tomorrow?

Write a book.

Because I love it more than showers.

Published author asks, if you can do something else, should you?

Because that is fundamentally who I am. It is my identity. It’s who I’ve always been. That’s who I’m always gonna be. I’m gonna be a storyteller. I don’t have to worry about whether it sells or not.

I’m not necessarily saying that you have to have that level of commitment or that you’re that in love with the craft, but, man, if you don’t, why are you doing it?

If you don’t love it, if it’s not motivating you, if the love of the craft, if the love of the story isn’t motivating you, then I would have a serious sit-down with yourself and make sure you’re not hiding from some other thing that will be more fulfilling for you.

I never want to dissuade people from writing. What I want to encourage, rather, is that you are serious and honest with yourself about writing and storytelling, and that you’re doing it in a way that brings you joy and fulfillment, because that may be the only thing you get out of it.

I have all kinds of, what they call trunk novels. They’re books that I’ve written that are locked away forever. They will never see the light of day. But I enjoyed doing them, and they brought me joy. And that was not wasted time.

The point of this conversation is that I do not want you to waste time.

I don’t get to decide, though, what wasting time looks like. That is up to you to determine.

I very rarely wasted time writing. There are exceptions, but for the most part, every word I’ve ever written, I’ve enjoyed doing it, and I’ve gotten joy from it. I just want you to set your goals, your expectations, and your metrics for success and then decide if you’re meeting them or not. And if you’re not, is it time to look for something else? Is it time to do something that’s more fulfilling?

I don’t know. I’m not being prescriptive. That is up for you to decide. Take care. And, of course, keep writing.

If you want to.

Get 52 weekly emails over the course of a year diving into the art, business, and craft of writing and publishing fiction at https://pxllnk.co/52fm

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Uncategorized

When? Now.

This image is a composite of all the pages of my first comic book, Beckett’s Last Mixtape, which will be launching soon on Kickstarter.

I spent a lot of money on this. I don’t know if anyone will want it.

But I’ll have a comic book based on one of my favorite characters from Party.

Totally worth it.

It was worth it when I blew thousands of dollars to produce Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 stage play for Chyro Arts Venue.

It was worth it driving to the tiny, antique town of Jerome with my wife a few weeks ago. Just for a few hours. (We found a great place for breakfast, and great place for fudge!)

That thing you want to do? Do it. Start today if you haven’t.

Dammit all, this is our only shot! Seize the day and all that. I don’t mean go skydiving or get a second mortgage to afford that European trip (although both of those are legitimate and entirely up to you).

That thing that sets your hair on fire. Do that.

You’ll be happier, and the world around you will be better for it.

Don’t wait.

Take care, be safe,
~ Tom

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Uncategorized

How To Forge Your Own Joy

What image comes to mind when you read the word “forge?”

Categories
Craft

How To Deal With the Frustrations of Writing

How do you deal with some of the frustrations that come with being a writer?

We suffer beneath many frustrations. There’s the frustration writers block. There’s the frustration of not having enough time to do the work we really want to do. Of course, the ultimate frustration is not having our work published, or perhaps worse: having a published book, but no one’s buying.

I’ve dealt with, and continue to deal with, all of these frustrations (and many others). After wrestling with these frustrations myself—in my own mind, on paper, wandering around the kitchen at 2 AM speaking into my phone—there is one solution that continues to come to mind. It is great and wonderful and terrible in its simplicity:

Keep writing.

I know. That’s probably the most . . . well, frustrating answer I could I have given to you or me. There are plenty of other actionable items we could add to this list: you could take courses, or spend money on Facebook ads for your book, for example. You can read books and articles like this one, and watch YouTube videos about any topic under the sun related to your frustrations as a writer. God knows I have.

But the one solution that I keep coming back to is that I must write.

Gary Vaynerchuk points out that if you really want success with the thing you love to do, design a process you love. There are no guarantees in any pursuit, whether that’s law, medicine, creative arts, financial work, you name it. So, you’d better come up with a process that you really enjoy. I really enjoy the process of writing novels. All of those frustrations I listed at the top of this article are still true—sometimes on a daily or even hourly basis all at once. But I still love the process of writing.

If you’ve gotten this far in this article, you probably do, too.

With no guarantee of financial or emotional success, how do you deal with all of those frustrations? You keep writing. You write because, as Stephen King points out, to not write is death. More than once in the last decade, I have considered quitting altogether. I have thought about going back to school, getting a graduate degree . . . “I’m just going to work full-time at a library or somewhere.” (That’s not a bad gig by the way.)

The problem is, the thought of never writing another word of fiction chills my heart. I already know that I may never ever publish with a New York publisher ever again. But in this day and age, there is no excuse not to write the things that we love and share them with the world. The internet has utterly and forever changed publishing. Find your audience, and you will be fine.

I am not trying to diminish the size or weight of those three frustrations, or the many other frustrations I didn’t even list. They are real. They hurt sometimes. They can cause distress. But if you are a writer, the only way forward is to keep writing. Perhaps we need to try a new genre, or a new format. Maybe it’s time to take a class in poetry, or essay writing, or creative nonfiction. I have taken these classes and gotten a lot out of them. More than once, they’ve reignited my desire to continue writing. I am also not dismissing all of those videos and courses I mentioned. They can be very powerful as motivators, or to inspire us to try something new and different.

Through it all, we must write. We must not just merely suffer anxiety, but rather be anxious to set forth to tell our stories.

If we cannot or will not do that, then the frustrations have won. Let’s not give them the satisfaction.

I say this at the end of most of my articles and posts about writing, but today, it takes on a slightly more serious meaning:

Keep. Writing.

I mean it.