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Wednesday, June 19, 2024
Wednesday, June 5, 2024
#IWSG--it's always changing
Welcome to another episode of How the Book Turns--a blog run of authors across the globe as we wail, gnash teeth, and generally love what we do--join us!
The awesome co-hosts for the June 5 posting of the IWSG are Liza at Middle Passages, Shannon Lawrence, Melissa Maygrove, and Olga Godim!
Today I'm looking at changes in our writing world and how they are
the one constant we have.
Way
back in grad school, I knew what to do. Take the courses, write the papers,
design, propose, and defend my thesis, and then get my degree. Easy, peasy. (Ignoring
the massive amount of work—the work was hard, but the path was easy 😉)
Sadly,
writing doesn't work that way. Oh, the writing part is the same, more, or less,
kinda sorta. Read some books from 50 years ago in your genre. Some are
classics, some make you wince. Writing styles and preferences change with time.
But
it's the business end and getting the elusive readers and sales that can be
soul-crushing, confusing, and maddening.
There isn’t a nice clean go from point A to B to C to success. And
even when you have some success (whatever you define it—we all have our own
valid success metrics) the next month, week, or even day, it can crumble.
The graph for most writers is an insanely swirling line that goes
up, down, sideways, backward, and sometimes into a black hole.
So, how do we cope?
Good question!
The first thing I’d suggest is to sort out what success means to
you. You don’t need to tell anyone. Just you. That success can change, and doesn’t
need to be related to numbers—aka “Sell X number of books” or “Make X number of
dollars”. It can be as general and vague as you want. And it can and should
change as you work your way through this writing path.
Secondly—don’t change everything because a successful author said
to do things a certain way. Yes, they might have succeeded doing exactly what
they are telling others to do. BUT- unless you have the same books they do, the
exact same skills they have, your situation will be different.
And their way might have worked six months ago, or longer, but not
now. I’m not saying don’t listen to other authors—do! 😊. But listen
to what they say carefully, pluck out the parts that resonate with you, dump
the rest, and move on.
The biggest thing is EXPECT THINGS TO CHANGE. I’m definitely a “prefers
a nice clean path of what to do and what my results will be” gal. Sadly, I’m a
writer and that option doesn’t exist. I’m now working on accepting that and
pivoting way more than I used to.
What about you? How do you deal with change in the writing world?
Happy IWSG Day!
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