The Shiny Everything and The Long Game
By Barbara O'Neal | February 25, 2015 |
After reading Therese and Porter’s posts on the digital world and its effects on our thinking and productivity, I’ve been thinking a lot on the subject. How does all of this affect my life, my creativity?
Confession: despite my reputation as a flighty Gemini, I am not a multitasker. It’s precisely because of my scatteredness that I can’t be—I must focus on one task at a time or I lose things, break them, get lost in the Shiny Everything. In college, after losing my keys for the 400th time and having to call someone to be rescued, a friend said, “You need routines.”
Turned out, he was right. As a very scattered, always-thinking, always dreaming creative type, the only thing that makes it possible for me to manage life is to keep a set of pretty rigid routines. That means one thing at a time. I cook when I cook—if I try to do anything else with it (apart from listening to music), I will burn everything. I can’t walk away. If I walk my dog, I walk my dog. I don’t listen to music or podcasts. We just….walk. The notifications on my social media and email are turned off and I check one thing at a time. If I am going to write, I don’t open my web browser, and on distractable days, I use Freedom to lock myself out. I’m still reading an average of five or six novels a month, sometimes more, and I do read on an iPad, so the Internet is there. The one exception is if I watch TV, I might have my iPad open and flip around, but that’s down time and I feel it’s okay to not really focus on anything.
This is not to demonstrate my superior skills of concentration. It’s just that I didn’t realize I don’t multitask at all and that seemed so weird in the modern world that I had to give it some thought.
So I don’t multitask, but I am still absolutely, completely immersed in the modern world. I love technology, connectedness, social media, and access to everything I want, when I want it, now.
Last night, Christopher Robin said that he’d never seen The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and he might like it. Since it has become my favorite movie (and our cross-over points for fiction of any kind are very small), I was delighted, so we settled in to find it. We looked through On Demand. It wasn’t available as a rental, only a $16 purchase. Tried NetFlix, and Amazon Prime, ditto. Not available yet. Undaunted, he tried iTunes and there it was, so we pulled it up and settled in to watch. Now apart from the slightly bloated size of our entertainment budget, it is kind of miraculous that this is possible. I don’t have to go anywhere. Whatever I want is right there, at the end of a mouse or a remote.
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The thing a writer who is focused on the long game will do at that moment is….wait for it….write the next book.
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If I want to talk to one of my sons, I can text them or check out their Facebook profiles, send an email, even just call. If I want cat litter or shoes or art supplies, I pull up the appropriate screen, tap in my numbers, and it will arrive at my door in a day or two. If I want to read and don’t like what I have around the house (hard as that is to believe, given the towering piles of reading that await), all I have to do is go find another one online in two seconds
This extends to nearly every arena of life. If I want to find out about a city, I check out Google Earth. I can see the street my hotel is on , and get a 360 degree view of it. I can travel with some clicking, find a cab, a restaurant, a movie, reservations, tickets, artists. I can research almost anything, in great detail, from my armchair.
Everything. Instantly. The Shiny Everything is right in front of me at all times.
As writers, we can even now write and publish our work instantly, via blogs and zines. Our public presences, via social media, give a big hit of recognition every time we sign in, so we learn to be clever in the moment, tally our Instagram and Facebook followers as if they are actual sales of books. We can even write and publish a novel in no time at all, be selling copies a week after it has been completed.
Here is my worry: writing is a long game. It’s the only possible way to have a strong, healthy, long career. I’m not talking about writers who are just in it for a fast buck or people who have one story that needs to be told, but writers who want a career, a long, satisfying, frustrating, maddening, up and down, heartbreaking and thrilling life as a writer.
Our world is all about the short game. Writing is the opposite. It takes a long time to learn the craft, to learn how to tell a story and tell it in competent, then perhaps beautiful language. It takes time to hear your voice, to understand what you want to say, and what kind of books you want to write in order to do that. It takes a lot of failure and trying again. It takes mistakes upon mistakes until those mistakes build a staircase to success.
Writing is one book, written and rewritten, polished and published. Then another. And another. And another. Every single one written to the best of your ability, then again, with passion, with care, with honor and as much truth as you can muster. I don’t mean that every book will take years. Some do, some don’t. The point is to write, to take as much time as you need to write the book that honors your particular gifts, ideas, focus.
Writing, and writing, and writing.
But here’s the thing. Even with all that practice, all the care in the world, all the learning, there is no guarantee you will succeed with any book you write, even if you’ve succeeded in the past. We’d all love to believe in our fast, slick, connected world that there is some magic formula we can learn, some way of being great enough at the fast game, the slick game, that we can succeed automatically.
The truth is that nothing you do, nothing I do, will guarantee success for any of the books we write. Some will succeed, sometimes so far beyond expectations that it’s startling and all you can do is laugh. Others—perfectly great books, sometimes even better books—will languish. Traditional publishing has always been shortsighted in the sense of wanting every every single book to be a big smash hit, and our instant gratification, connected, in-the-moment world has made that a hundred times worse. That’s where the anxiety lies for many of us. If there are three books that do well, one that flies, and the next one doesn’t sell as well for whatever reason (cover, timing, the phase of the moon, major disaster in the world), the next contract might be harder to get. That anxiety leads us to multitasking, frantic busyness, endless social media-ing.
To what end? What does it cost in terms of that long game of a writer’s career?
If everything is instantaneous, and everything is on Twitter, and my image is dependent on flying high every minute, then what happens to me if I am only in a writing phase, pulling something together that feels big and important and challenging to me, and I need time to do it? Like, real time. A year, two. And even then, what if that book that I work so hard on, that I sell and publish with a respected New York house, fails to perform? Does that mean I’m a failure? That I should give up?
No. It doesn’t mean any of those things. It doesn’t mean there was even anything wrong with the book.The thing a writer who is focused on the long game will do at that moment is….wait for it….write the next book.
In the publishing world, the pressure to be glittery has always been there. Young and new often performs better than old and jaded, and the current climate of instant gratification has trained us all to feel more and more like we need to keep up with that glitter.
But a long career contains many moments, many books. Those books are always out there, too, forever and ever and ever. The more seriously you take the writing process itself each time, doing your very best, most sincere work, the more fully you give yourself to the idea of your own body of work, the more easily you can weather everything else.
I’m not sure how we keep ourselves from wanting instant gratification, honestly. I can identify the problem, but not the solutions. How do we stay focused on that long game? How do we protect the work we’re meant to do from the onslaught of connectedness and the need to have instant feedback? Realistically, I’m not going to get off-line in any meaningful way. I live in this world and I’m okay with that.
But I want to protect the body of my work from the need to satisfy something outside of myself, and satisfy my own sense of artistic accomplishment. One thing I can do is keep the work to myself until I’m very sure I’m ready to show it. Another is to take time every day to work away from distractions (I can turn off the internet for a few hours without losing anything). I can look at the shelf of books I’ve already written and realize that one by one, they have had their moments in the sun, but as a body, they represent a career of care and integrity—and that’s the reward of the long game.
How do you feel about the long game? Does it even seem possible? Do you have other ideas to help protect the long tame, to keep it viable and real in a hurry-up, Shiny Everything world?
Note: I’ll be teaching on several topics at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference April 23-26, in Colorado Springs, including a Romance Novel Boot Camp. I’d love to see you! For more details, check out PPWC.
Photo Flickr Creative Commons by Kaj17
Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in more than 20 countries and spent many months on the Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. Barbara lives on the beach in rugged Oregon with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent and their zoo of cats and dogs. You can find more information on her newsletter and where to find her on social media at barbaraoneal.com.
Didn’t really have much to add or say. Only wanted to say thanks. Such a nice reminder of things important being creative. Thank you. :-)
Yes, keeping up with the ‘glitter’ can be fun but also stressful and tiring. And all that glitters is not gold. In our instant, everything at the click of the button, world maybe we mistake the gaudy baubles for the real depth and essence of creativity that the long game brings. It is in that place where the inspirational and great writing happens.
Thanks for reminding us all, Barbara.
My God, I find this essay comforting. I have a fully formed vision of the long game, as you name it. I’ve blogged about it myself. But it’s so easy to get caught up in everyone else’s Shiny, to see the instant thing happening around us–constantly swirling before our eyes. I’m sure there are those who aren’t necessarily playing a short game, but their Shiny of the moment is in full display, dancing before our eyes, looking oh-so-instantaneous.
I’ve recently taken a slight diversion on my course forward. It’s been gratifying. I’ve learned much. My world on the page is richer for it. I feel I’ve grown. But it’s taken time. And the constant whirl leaves me feeling archaic and sluggish. Thank you for reminding me, Barbara. I did not set out to write *a* book. I set out to be a writer. I’m still on the right path.
Time well spent, sounds like, Vaughn. I know you’re committed to the long game, too.
Barbara, what a wonderful post. You and I must be sisters. When I walk, I walk, when I cook, I cook, when I write, I write. Never been a multi-tasker, never will be.
I’m here to write for the long haul. I don’t know how many days I have. Ever since I was a child, death has loomed upon me, so I try to do the next right thing. It’s as simple as that. I know where my priorities and responsibilities lie — God, family, writing — in that order. I shall probably die with a pen in my hand, ink dripping onto the pages.
Love that, Vijaya– I shall probably die with a pen in my hand, ink dripping onto the pages.
I can think of no better way for a writer to end her days. <3
Thanks so much, Barbara, for so beautifully articulating many of the things I murmur to myself on a daily basis as I watch the shiny everything from everywhere zipping round my consciousness. I’m a Long-Gamer from way back, not only in career terms but in connection with each and every project.
Your long game attitude shows in so many ways, Margaret. In your garden, in your travels, and in your books.
Thank you, Barbara, for these words.
This paragraph stopped and settled into that place of wonder and doubt.
“Our world is all about the short game. Writing is the opposite. It takes a long time to learn the craft, to learn how to tell a story and tell it in competent, then perhaps beautiful language.”
To resist the world’s lure into the short game (as I’m not a short game type of person) and to tell a story, not in competent, but beautiful language–these are encouraging words.
Barbara–
You’ve written two posts here, both beautifully expressed. The first captures your personal encounter with the Shiny Everything of the present. That encounter has convinced you that you’re no multi-tasker. Actually, you are one, but not the kind that looks like the god Shiva, with six or eight pairs of arms in motion at once. I absolutely share your commitment to “the walk as walk,” all by itself, and mono-tasking (thank you, Therese) when cooking, etc.
The second post is a Q&A with self related to the conflict between the Long Game (writing extended narratives, or novels) and the baby bird-like chirping demands from all sides to do this or that or the other to keep in touch, and to give one’s work some chance of finding readers. “How do we stay focused on that long game?” you ask.
Everyone must answer for herself or himself. For me, the solution lies in not being embarrassed by the word “art.” Excepting literary as opposed to popular fiction, most writers I know are like me: they aren’t comfortable with characterizing themselves as artists. It seems pretentious, too “grand.”
But if the writer truly respects language, believes what she produces are novels, not “product,” art is the right word. That’s why I have a real problem with the idea of “choosing a genre” to write in. In my view, the genre chooses you. It speaks to your nature, as opposed to being dictated by current, shiny-everything market trends or odds.
The other thing that bothers me in the Shiny Everything is the drumbeat of marketing advice that urges writers to “get the work out.” I believe the pressure to write multiple titles a year is as odds with art.
Can some do it? Of course. But I’m convinced that for most writers, following this advice will lead to work that’s more difficult to take pride in. Work that has less to do with art.
So: I am going to pull the plug whenever the Shiny Everything intrudes on the novel I’m mono-tasking. I will choose art (read: quality) over market-driven forces (read: quantity). By doing this, I will almost certainly reduce the chances of making money. And improve the odds of feeling proud of what ends up having my name on it.
Yes, Barry, the idea of art as the cornerstone of writing does seem to embarrass a lot of writers. Not sure why. Even extreme beginners in other disciplines take the idea seriously–art, art, art. I believe writers are artists, too, and our pursuit of the dream, the possibilities, are very much at the heart of what we do.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
Thank you for this. I so needed to read it today.
Vaughn, this is beautiful, and spoke to me dearly, “I did not set out to write *a* book. I set out to be a writer.” Kudos, seriously.
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
I NEEDED this today. Thank you.
“It takes a long time to learn the craft, to learn how to tell a story and tell it in competent, then perhaps beautiful language. It takes time to hear your voice, to understand what you want to say, and what kind of books you want to write in order to do that. It takes a lot of failure and trying again. It takes mistakes upon mistakes until those mistakes build a staircase to success.”
Amen, Barbara, Amen. To honor, support, and nurture our voice, to bring sensitivity to the story/message that is aching to be shared…patience and devotion to the practice is the only way.
Gratitude for this beautiful reminder.
Thanks, Barbara. As an aspiring writer, it is easy to believe that everyone else has the shiny everything and that if only I could _______ (fill in the blank) somehow my life would be perfect. I write because I have stories to tell, not because I want the shiny everything. If I can’t enjoy walking the dog, or cooking a lovely dinner, or penning another novel, then I am letting life pass me by.
Your post echoes something that has recently been on my own mind. It has taken me two years to write my last book, about to be released to fans of my series and currently a source of great anxiety – will they like it? will it disappoint? But I had to struggle daily to tear myself away from the Shiny and focus on the one true thing (a nod to Jack Palance’s Curly – anyone recognize the reference?) which was my goal.
I’m hoping that the next book, still in the research, planning and note making stage, won’t be as much of a struggle. You talk about routine. I know that’s the key and that I should follow your example to limit distractions during what I designate as writing time. My self-discipline so far has been … well, I guess it hasn’t been. Like the raven outside my windows, I’m drawn to the Shiny.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Hey, Barbara,
Such a thoughtful, penetrating vision here, thanks for it. I agree with every word and I think we need to say much more frequently than we do that “writing is a long game.” So many seem to think that our tech capabilities are ways around that. And they’re not, of course.
As it happens, I AM that flightly Gemini, lol. Well, not flighty, I hope, but part of the interest I have in trying to embrace the multi-level complexity of “the wired way,” I think, has to do with the fact that I run with many stimuli all the time.
Mind you, I’m not as happy with that as I wish sometimes — I’d love to be able to just walk the dog. I can rarely be so focused, though.
So I’ll have what you’re having, please, lol.
And thanks again for this sensitive, thoughtful response to the dilemma. Even in trying to be that “forward team” that learns to handle all the balls in the air at once, my real goal is integration — to integrate more of this into the genuinely important tasks, make them part OF the long game, not shiny distractions at every yard line.
Well done, thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Thanks so much for this post, Barbara. I, too, like the benefits of living in today’s world, but it seems to (but maybe doesn’t have to) come into conflict with the space that writing – and enjoying the process of writing – takes. For me, at least.
I appreciated Barry’s comments and wanted to add that, more than the temptations of social media, I find the conflict between the pace of actual writing and the pace of the business and marketing side of writing to be the hardest to come to terms with, at least as a new writer with little experience in this world. On the marketing side, we are encourages to publish more stories, more often, and with more publicity efforts. But the pace of writing, revising, revising, revising some more and then traditional publishing doesn’t seem to match this. And as someone relatively new to writing books, I feel pulled in both these direcitons, unsure of what is right for me.
Of course, there’s no magic answer for this balance, so I’ve loved reading Therese’s, Porter’s and your perspectives on the topic.
For years – decades – my writing was something I wanted to devote more time to but I did not integrate into my life and work. Then I decided it had to be done. And not as some type of multitasking endeavor. It had to come from motivation centered on dedication and, as you say, a view of the long game.
Since then, I’m happily working at my craft and discovering others, such as yourself, with the same interest and dedication. It’s one of the gratifying aspects of this commitment. Your words ring true to me. Thank you.
Barbara-
In some ways I think the long game is the only one worth playing. If I want a short game I can play a hand of poker on my phone.
The short game is flirting. The long game is marriage. Than again, while the former may be a game the later is not. It’s a commitment and the point is not winning.
Same with writing fiction.
In for the long game, Barbara, and running like crazy right now to do the required social media for a launch. Each morning feels like getting out of bed to roll in sandpaper for this Shiny Everything part of publishing now.
Thank you for voicing what I’ve lost the time and energy to express. On, on.
“The point is to write, to take as much time as you need to write the book that honors your particular gifts, ideas, focus.” Yes, yes, yes!! I needed to hear this today. Thank you so much! For me, it’s not just social media, but this drive to produce, produce, produce that drags at my soul. I have friends that write several books a year, participate in word wars, tweet about insane word counts and the frenetic pace at which they’re able to juggle multiple projects at a time with contracts being thrown at them left and right. I’ve tried, and failed to crank out words with reckless abandon, to keep up that kind of pace, but I can’t. The more I write, the more I understand that I am a deliberate drafter, one who loves the crafting of the story, who loves getting intimate with her characters and often stops in the middle of a scene to ask important questions before continuing on. I need time and space to get lost in the story and to utterly devote myself to the telling. It takes me longer to draft, but I’m much happier with the end result and my revisions are quicker and easier when I take the time to think about what I’m doing instead of throwing words on the page. I’m not saying one way is better than the other, but it often seems to me that fast drafting is being touted as the ‘right way’ to write. It’s hard to remember that there is no ‘right way’, and that each writer has their own pace, their own process, which should be honored and nurtured. Of course, there has to be balance, and goals, and deadlines, but we should all lean to understand what that means to us as individuals and stop comparing ourselves with others. Without being true to ourselves, our stories, and our own process, I fear the game would be very short indeed.
Writing as a long game is so encouraging. Some of us don’t need instant gratification per se, but we feel as if we are missing out because that seems to be the goal in so many things that surround us. Instant gratification can be a substitute for validation, and I think that’s where the risk is. We all want evidence that what we are doing has impact. In a metrics-obsessed world, we expect it.
This all makes it hard to hear the inner voice — the one we should be listening to — that resides in people who take on the risk of revealing what’s inside of them to the world.
I’m half way through my very first Barbara O’Neal book “The Lost Recipe for Happiness” and I’m reading very slowly because I don’t want it to end.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had that feeling about a book. Thanks!