Money and the Writer
By Barbara O'Neal | September 28, 2016 |
We’d all like to be this popular.
Writers and money have been on the internet this week, notably in an essay by a young woman writer, Merritt Tierce, who published a novel to high acclaim. In the article, she described her despair at being unable to make money as a writer. Plaintively she wrote, “I would, right now, sign in blood a contract that would pay me $40,000 a year for the rest of my life. No advances. No royalties. No freelance checks, no honoraria, no prize money, no film or TV options. At this stage in my vocational life, $40,000 is probably well below my earning capacity.”
The essay irritated me, became a pebble in my shoe. I wanted to just walk away, forget about it, but every time I took a step, there it was, gouging my instep. So why the irritation? I wasn’t sure. I mean, I actually agree with her: it’s damned hard to make an actual living as a writer, even when you’re doing well. Even when you’re award- winning and/or critically acclaimed or get a lot of rights abroad and a bunch of translations or movie deals. The money comes in giant chunks at unreliable intervals at vast distances from each other, or it comes in drips and drabs or not at all.
I get it. The money part of a writing life is not the easy part.
And yet, that pebble in my shoe would not shake out. I poked around the internet to see what I could read about writing and money. I found another essay written by another young woman, Emily Gould, who made a big money deal for her first book, which then failed (8000 copies on a $200,000 advance) and couldn’t sell another. That’s enough money, and a big enough failure, that it really does cause problems for a writer—trouble that will be difficult to overcome.
In contrast, Tierce sold 12000 copies of a hardcover book and was paid a rather modest advance of somewhere between $50-99,000 according to Publishers Marketplace. No way she’d earn out the advance on those numbers, and probably her publisher considers that a failure, too, but they are not as challenging as Gould’s.
Both women talked about selling one book and then struggling to make a go of a career. But Gould’s essay didn’t irritate me in the slightest. She was panicked and poor and doing writing conferences on a shoestring, shamed into buying an admirer’s coffee even though she barely had any cash of her own. Any writer without some other means of support has probably been there. I know I have, many times. But instead of howling about the circumstances, she dove back into the work, trying to write something else, find her voice, live somewhere cheaper than Brooklyn.
Then she zeroes in on this:
“Or maybe the problem—well, a problem—was that I felt entitled to several different lives. In one of these lives, my book has made me famous as a pundit and wit, the kind of person who’s constantly consulted on everything from what feminists should be enraged about to what jeans to buy. This person writes a great book every few years and travels and whips up impressionistic little essays for classy magazines when she feels like it, not because she has to. She’s single, or maybe she has a glamorous artist boyfriend. She is beautiful, but not professionally beautiful—beautiful like a French person. Like Charlotte Gainsbourg.
In another of these lives, my writing has given me the wherewithal to live within a bourgeois coziness I’ve fantasized about for years (my feminist, socialist education making me feel guilty all the while). In this fantasy I’m married to my true love Keith, we own a brownstone and my books pay the mortgage, we have children, and I write novels while they’re at school and cook delicious meals every night and the importance of the world’s approval recedes into insignificance because I have the much more solid and gratifying love of my family. But I still have it—the approval. Of course. Like Jennifer Egan (though I don’t know if she cooks). Like Laurie Colwin, but not dead.”
Bingo: she felt entitled to the Author Life. Having recognized this, she goes on to write another book, sells a collection of essays, grapples with the life of a writer.
Tierce, at least as she presents herself in this essay, wants to be an Author. Somewhere along the line, maybe in an MFA program (of which there are now more than 300 in the US), she picked up the idea that selling a book and getting good reviews entitled her to something more than what she got. She had the degrees, why didn’t she have the clout and social standing she thought she had earned? What I want to tell Tierce is, “get back to work. Write another book. Write three. Write ten. Keep writing until you find the next thing.”
No one ever says to any artist, “You are not only going to be able to do work you love madly, but you’re going to be revered and admired and given high marks and make money enough to live comfortably.” When did that even become an expectation?
Yes, some writers break out, but only the heavens really know why. Brilliant books die quietly on the shelves and brilliant books make millions—or billions. Terrible books do incredibly well, and some of them never make any money at all. Making art is not like becoming a lawyer or a teacher. You can’t just study the right things in the right order and expect to be rewarded handsomely, attain high status in your neighborhood, and be Author.
Don’t get me wrong. I love playing Author as much as the next writer. It’s really fun sometimes, getting dressed up to give a reading or to actually know genuinely famous people, or give an interview, sit on a panel giving my opinion. Humans like status and the reason we like the Author aspect of a writing life is that there is status in being an Author.
But it is dangerous to get caught there. Writers write. Writers roll up their sleeves and listen into the void and find something to put on the page, something as real and true as they can get in whatever genre fits them. Writers listen to the stories inside of them, the prompts about the things that are important to them. Writers seek to share, communicate. A writer is as thrilled by an earnest reader letter as by a great review by a big publication.
Of course we should be paid for our work. And as with every other kind of art, there is always that lurking possibility that a book will really take off, sell millions, become beloved in 20 languages, and we can buy a house in the south of France. That possibility doesn’t exist if you’re working in a hospital or an office or for the police force, right? Magic can happen.
But you shouldn’t sulk if it doesn’t. Get back to work now. Write the next book. Even if you do strike it rich, write the next book. That’s what writers do.
What kind of fantasies did you hold about the Author Life before you waded into this game? What draws you to this work, this world? How do you keep yourself going when the money is not what you wish?
Photo of Jordan/Katie Price signing books at Swansea by Ty
[coffee]
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.
Thank you for this, Barbara. I appreciate this reality check. I skimmed through both articles that you linked. Both authors sound young and remind me of my own two young adult children who struggle to find meaningful work that provides enough for an independent lifestyle in, what seems to be, the new economic climate.
I’m a writer still working on my first novel. I have a non-fiction book published and know how difficult it is to market your own book. With my novel, I have lots of hopes and dreams. Don’t we all? But I’m keeping my day job.
Youth is filled with fantasies, as it should be. And as creative dreamers, of course we have big dreams. It’s not a bad thing to have a day job in the end. Or an inheritance. Or a spouse.
My favorite fantasy was receiving an award where Stephen King would hand it to me in front of a room full of other famous authors. That and the cabin in Alaska where I’d escape every August for moose and caribou hunting. Of course, it would have internet and a full wine bar.
Now? It’s you people who motivate me. This writing thing is a like being part of a skydiving club or small revolutionary group, except we don’t have to throw up at 5,000 feet or end up locked in small prison cells with no one to talk to but the guy who issues our daily food rations and interrogations (pull out the dental tools and I’ll spill all of our secrets).
I find that hanging out with other writers, even if we never see each other, is motivating. To hear how each of you think and see the world is an inspiration. And proof that I am not alone in my insanity.
I also write because chicks dig it. The chicks in question being my wife. Men, you’ll be shocked to learn, are terrible communicators. When my wife reads my books, she learns a lot about me (and she’s still around!). I love it when she cries over something I’ve written, and not just because of the spelling errors. She’s my audience. My “number one fayon.”
So I guess I’m writing for a smaller audience and writing with friends I’d never know otherwise. It’s a fun life. Thank God for my engineering degree or I’d starve. But I’d still write, no matter what.
P.S. if I find myself tied to my bed with a freshly broken leg, the code word will be “dirty bird.” Come find me…but knock first, we’re practically newlyweds after all.
Ron, what a great fantasy! I’ve dreamed of the Newbery … It’s so great your wife is not crying about the spelling mistakes :)
I’m thankful for my husband’s engineering too — it’s allowed me to stay home and take care of the children and write.
This made me cheer–and laugh. We are all a crazy tribe.
I love the award fantasy–and why not? Nora Roberts once gave me a RITA, which was a dazzling moment, for sure.
Your wife sounds like a delight.
Merritt Tierce’s take on what a writer’s life should be like make me LOL. Really laugh out loud. It’s funny because it’s true. That’s the fantasy life, though I’d say it’s a kind of fantasy also spun out for everyone equally in magazines like Vogue, Esquire, Real Simple and Vanity Fair.
One rainy day I was taking the bus across Brooklyn to work. I struck up a conversation with a handsome guy who, it turned out, had his video studio in the same building as my literary agency. It’s a slow ride. He told me about his girlfriend. He mentioned the motorcycle he was rebuilding. He had great hair.
I was consumed with envy. This guy was living the Esquire life.
But wait a minute…I live in Brooklyn too. I hang out in coffee bars and write on my laptop. (You’re reading some of that now.) I’ve got a beautiful wife. She’s a chef. We traveled to Africa to adopt two children. We have witty conversations, albeit late at night, sipping plummy Spanish tempranillo. My 21st book comes out in January.
My life ain’t so bad. The guy with the girlfriend probably envied my happy marriage. Most days, I ride my bike to work. His motorcycle still isn’t running. And the videography business is as up and down as mine.
It’s all in how you look at it. Even if it doesn’t fit the fantasy template perfectly, the writing life is still pretty great. Money? Yeah, well, that’s nice to have. But it’s not everything. When people envy writers, it’s not their income that they envy. It’s their freedom.
Very wise insight, Don. It really is the freedom others envy.
I love the writing life, too, or I wouldn’t still be doing it after a couple of decades. Sometimes the money is even pretty sweet.
Thanks for this. :)
“When people envy writers, it’s not their income that they envy. It’s their freedom.” This.
Barb, I really enjoyed this article, esp. since my husband and I were talking last night and he said how much he appreciates my writing, and it’s not for the money, though the extras help given the high cost of Catholic schooling.
I began writing when I had children so I’ve always been a writer-mama. My fantasies revolved around sleep. And somewhere along the way, I began to fantasize about winning the Newbery, but I still haven’t written that MG novel … lol. Actually, I am living my dream. I’m so grateful I can stay home with my children. They don’t need me much; they’re ready to fly the nest.
My husband and I cherish our time together cooking, gardening, or just sitting on the back porch, watching the sunset. We take moonlit walks with our dog.
ps: If I had to support myself, I’d probably return to teaching. I no longer want the 12-hr days of being in the lab. I need to write like I Need to Breathe (my husband and daughter went to their concert last night so it’s on my mind).
That’s what I was for a long time, too, Vijaya, a writer-mama. It was such a luxury to be able to stay home with my children and provide after school snacks for the entire neighborhood.
Freedom. Yes. Even more so, it’s that writers and other artists have the courage to free ourselves to the pursuit. The majority of the population will never act on a dream. It’s a prison of one’s own making. When I say I write novels, the usual response is, “I can’t imagine trying anything like that.” When I say, “Why not?”, the list of excuses is similar to what I have to deal with every day. “Free thyself” should be the motto of our little club.
It IS the freedom. But Ron, I still want your wine bar. Barbara, thanks, as ever, for a thoughtful piece. The writing life is a weird one, and the money is pretty dang spotty for most of us. But, at this very moment, I’m house-sitting in Oahu for a month, just because of the writing life.
Not that I’m able to do this from fiction writing, but I’m editing a couple of nonfiction books, and writing for a couple of magazines, and making only a scraping from both, but the eclectic opportunities and the Internet have let me house-sit (working close to full-time, but still, the beaches!) over the past few years in the Bahamas, Mexico and now Hawaii twice. The writing life—plus rum and pineapple juice at 5—is swell.
I wouldn’t mind the house-sitting in Oahu, Tom!
I think what Don Maass said above nails it for me–it’s the fantasy of freedom. Of not being tied to corporate America.
Probably as a kid fantasizing about my writing career I thought in terms of “getting rich” but that fantasy gets squelched as soon as you grow up and start joining writerly circles and find out what the writing life is really like. Sure, there are a few outliers, but they aren’t the norm.
But it’s worth pursuing that chase for freedom–even a bit of freedom from the brainless 14 hour a day grind.
Great post, Barbara. I have to admit, I have probably spent as many hours daydreaming about Author Life as I have actually writing. (Not to worry: That’s just a lot of hours of both. ;P) But I’m not in this for money or fame, or even security. And sometimes I need reminders like this to re-focus my daily attention. Thank you!
I felt the same way. This column was convicting, in a sense. It’s so easy to get caught up in the idea of living in another time and place, instead of the one we are in right now.
I’ve been a writer-mama and a writer-back- in- school and a writer-caring for my dying mother. I have a good life, though I haven’t “broken out” yet. LOL. How can you be a writer if you don’t love living, know how to see and delve into your real life, your ups and downs? Imaging your life as something of a modern fairy tale might get one book out of you, but it’s not the one I want to read. Great post, Barbara.
Maybe I’m the odd recluse, but I never dreamed that ‘author life’ mentioned. As a matter of fact, that’s the last thing I ever want. I don’t want to read in public or mingle at crowded conference halls pretending to be ‘someone’. No desire for interviews onstage in front of a mic. I want to write and only hope some people out there will buy and enjoy my stories.
I’ve earned a total of $1000 for fiction I’ve written (for a short story), and yet I wager I’ve written many more words (both fiction and nonfiction) than Ms. Tierce. I don’t write for the money; I write because it’s how I interface with the world and it’s what I love to do. This essay irritated me, too, not just the expectation but the lack of appreciation for what she has accomplished. At best, only 10 percent of novels are ever published (that’s the most generous number I’ve ever seen). To earn money, too? I’ve earned over $40K a year as a business/technical writer, but I’d never even expect that! Life’s a gamble, it always is, but getting published feels more like a lightning strike. Hell yes I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’ve fantasized about the possibilities of the glamorous author’s life…still, maybe it’s because I’m a lot older than Ms. Tierce: I’d be nothing but pleased as punch if only one book of mine was published. And I know I’d never take it for granted or as a given for future earnings or publication.
Yes, I’ve dreamed the Author Dream. Swanning around my office with a view in fashionable lounging clothes, waiting for inspiration. Book signings with people lined up to gush. Flying across the country to attend Author Events – whatever that might be. Enough money to afford two homes and the ability to support my husband so he wouldn’t have to pack a lunch to head off to do hard work every day. But my reality is I’m reading this great article as I’m sitting at my computer, feet pedaling away on my under-the-desk elliptical because I don’t get enough exercise because I sit at my desk so much. I’m also waiting for the clock to hit ‘panic time’ meaning the time I know I have to stop fiddling around on the internet and get working so that I can get the words for the morning done. And then I do it all over again for the words for the afternoon. I only have one house and my husband still has to work, but it’s only part-time and the house is paid off. Dreams get adjusted by reality. Like you said, writers write. We write more than we dream if we want to get anywhere. I’m living my adjusted dream in the northern backwoods of Alberta. But it has taken sacrifice and self-control and discipline. I’m not bragging. I know myself what a crap-shoot publishing can be and know how fortunate and truly blessed I am to have a publisher that will take my stuff. But I have worked at it. Every day. For many years. Thanks so much for laying out this reality. Dream, yes, but don’t stay there. Do the work.
It does take sacrifice, self-control, and discipline, you’re right. The backwoods of Alberta sounds all right, though.
I usually have a cat on my feet. ;)
Confession: I’ve never wanted to be famous. I don’t need it and the ensuing invasion of my privacy. Neither do I want nor need to be a NYTimes bestseller and all the status and/or privilege it brings. I just want to make a comfortable living with my writing. I don’t need a fancy house – the one I have now is small and suitable for me, my husband, and my daughter. I don’t need a fancy car – I drive a 2007 Chevy Impala that I own free and clear and it suits me fine. I don’t need to buy high-end designer clothes or dine at a fancy restaurant once a week. I just want to be able to pay my bills every month and put aside a little extra in my savings account. That’s really it.
Maybe it’s from growing up on a farm during the 80s Farm Crisis (remember FarmAid with Willie Nelson?) and having to endure people coming onto our property for a sale to buy my Dad’s farming equipment so we could pay the bank. Those lean years, of watching my mother freak out when we went to buy groceries because we didn’t have the money, of getting Christmas gifts from strangers because my parents couldn’t afford to buy them for us, taught me something. It taught me to be content with having enough. To be grateful for what I *do* have.
My ultimate dream? To not work at the day job, but make around the same amount of money (maybe slightly more) selling my novels. To be able to take a vacation to England every few years. To be able to breathe when I get an electric bill that is higher than I budgeted.
That has been my dream since the 6th grade. I’m 41 now and though I’ve made progress, I’m still chasing that dream. I am a writer – it’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.
I remember the Mellencamp album about farms in Illinois. Blood on the Scarecrow. Rough times. Now small farms are trying to make a comeback. Hope they make it!
Barbara,
As always, great considered wisdom from you. Since the draw–the deep draw–for the artist/author to create is connection and communication with others, money is a by-product, not the main event. When we authors invert this scenario we suffer. And the truth about money is as you describe. It arrives capriciously.
My fantasies as an author come true in the connections–hearing about and seeing each reader’s rise in adrenaline as a result of the work, and learning how they capture the story and characters according to their own way of viewing life and the world. Proof that we kindle imagination by giving words to our own. A great gift.
It’s not the number of connections made. After all, who can attend to 10,000 comments? The best gifts are the conversations that I have with readers wherever they dwell. The money? It comes . . . or doesn’t.
Barbara, I appreciate this post. I too read that article and couldn’t exactly pin down what irritated me about it, but you’ve hit on it: entitlement. Put another way, covetousness. It truly is the curse of our time when we can so easily peek into others’ lives to see what they have and do (or what they publicly profess to have and do, all the while obscuring their struggles). Covetousness is why I stopped buying home magazines and avoid most HGTV (other than Rehab Addict and Fixer Upper).
I like the distinction you make between wanting the Author’s life and living the Writer’s life. That’s it exactly. We all have our daydreams, but there’s also reality. And the romance of the struggle is worth celebrating.
I’ve been around long enough to witness shooting stars fade and die and some who settle in for the long haul. And now that I’m really an empty nester. I sometimes have second thoughts. What if I had a pension? And it gets scarier as publishing changes and I keep creaking along as a writer. But writing and I have an inseparable relationship, sometimes love sometimes not so much. Fantasy I use for those times when I’m drowning in the sagging middle or other stupid stuff and need the swift kick. its when I fall into thinking that the fantasy is the writing that I really get out of whack. The writing so far as won out.
Such great advice. These writers sound like me in my early twenties. I truly believed I’d write a great novel, quit my day job, and have one of those two lives described. For a few years, that’s what I was working towards.
Then I started querying, and not getting anywhere, and over time I realized that what I wanted wasn’t one bestseller and to quit everything else, but to BE A WRITER. Which requires writing more than one book, be it in the evenings, on my lunch breaks, or whenever I have the time. The lack of success for my first book was disappointing, but in retrospect I queried too soon. So I wrote a second, and a third, and haven’t queried anything yet because revisions, revisions, revisions.
I’m in my thirties now. I have a day job that I like decently enough that pays quite well. I wish I could work fewer hours than I do and spend more time on writing and life, but it’s just not something I’ve found to be possible in my industry. My eventual plan is to freelance (writing and social media) so I can decide when I want to work on stuff that pays me and when I want to write books. But for now I do it purely for the love of the written word, and I’m enjoying the lack of pressure, however long it lasts :)
Wonderfully said. Thank you, thank you! I especially resonated with “Writers roll up their sleeves and listen into the void and find something to put on the page, something as real and true as they can get in whatever genre fits them. Writers listen to the stories inside of them, the prompts about the things that are important to them. Writers seek to share, communicate.” Returning to that in the last couple of years has made all the difference in rediscovering the joys in what we writers do.
Thanks Barbara – what a thought-provoking post, at least for me. I’ve written most of my life, since I could hold a pencil, even published a few things, though money played a pretty much non-existent part of that.
Over the years I’ve realized my financial dreams are pretty simple – I’d pay off my bills (including school loans from an post-50 year old master’s), pay off my sister’s mortgage, and then see what was left.
My life is pretty simple, due in no small part to the almost 15 years spent living in community/in a monastery, where I could only have a room. And everyone thought I was crazy, because I insisted on lugging my box spring and mattress with me, even up and down the 14-mile dirt road into the Ventana wilderness. And my books – those that I kept, which was a precious few (relatively speaking).
Freedom – sure, that’s part of my dream. Freedom from debt. Freedom from worrying how to pay my bills. And if I get past those things, freedom to spend the summer racing season at Saratoga, and watch the horses work in the early morning mist.
Maybe one day the freedom to walk the Camino de Santiago with friends or family.
Those aren’t impossible dreams, they simply aren’t practical right now. And that’s fine. I’m healthy. I’m able to write in front of the fire at Asilomar or in my local coffee shop, and of course at home. I have an apartment that is clean and it has a kitchen and a bathroom and my bed, so I’m far better off than the homeless where I work in Salinas.
I couldn’t have imagined this life 10 years ago, or even 5. I’m old enough now to know it isn’t the money that makes it work. It’s living the life I have, instead of longing for the one I don’t have. The dreams are there, and I’m deeply grateful for the reality as well…
What kind of fantasies did you hold about the Author Life before you waded into this game?
When he died, my grandparents’, parents’, and my friend, Aaron Marc ‘Rod’ Stein, had written 115 books. He dedicated one to my husband and me! He traveled with his sister and her husband, deducted part of the cost as research, and lived, on Park Avenue in NYC, on his earnings. That’s what I knew about real authors, and that’s what I expected: hard work, constant output, and the rewards if you were good enough. A solid mid-list career (his degree was in classics from Princeton) for an adult. I planned to take up writing as a second career when I retired from doing research physics – at Princeton.
It was a realistic expectation – not the entitled one of the woman who wrote that whiny essay about how ONE book did not make her famous and set her up for life.
What draws you to this work, this world?
The huge pleasure of the process, when you get in the groove, of being able to take what’s in your head and reproduce it on a page, so that some version can be inhaled by a reader.
With the current options, I have this at my disposal when I am sure the writing is ready and of high enough quality to as someone else to pay me for it.
How do you keep yourself going when the money is not what you wish?
By the knowledge (not fantasy) that if I keep at it, the money will be what I wish, preferably pre-humously.
Would I have relied on writing to help support our family before? No, unless my other options had disappeared. I’ve always known it’s an erratic income source, especially for beginners – and beginners need to learn to write, too.
It’s the same attitude I’ve always had about people who pay for drama degrees in college with huge student debt: have you even looked at the job market and your ability to repay? People who have a PhD in engineering, with computer skills, may not be able to find positions in Academia (most don’t, and they don’t tell you this, or the schools would not be able to stay open and pay their professors), but are quite useful almost anywhere there is science, industry, or government – if they have any flexibility.
No one born in this world is entitled to an easy life, not even the child of royalty or wealth. Artists have always struggled harder, and many of them are never self-supporting. This should not be news to anyone, MFA or not! Where’s your Plan B to support yourself and your family? And Plans C, D, and…?
The few who are prodigies at an early age work very hard – and don’t have a sinecure either.
I battle a disabling disease daily for my few hours of writing; I’m not going to feel anyone young and healthy deserves anything – except what they earn. And a good solid start in life courtesy of the educational system, at least until high school (which is what we promise them now and often waste).
Living on Park Avenue on a midlist writer’s income would be pretty astonishing these days!
So nice to read the many comments on this! It seems for most of us, it’s not the money that makes us write in the first place. It’s about fulfillment. The money is just the icing on the cake. I began to write as a child. Why? I always loved to read, and somehow that also made me want to write.
My first attempt at fiction was when I was about twelve, a novel (?) about a girl and her horse. During my high school years, I was writing poetry and dreaming of living in a downtown garret, drinking red wine and smoking cigarettes while I wrote late into the night. I don’t remember even considering how I was going to pay for the garret, let alone the cigarettes and wine!
Now I feel incredibly lucky to be retired and living on a ranch on the Cariboo Plateau in B.C., with enough free hours to write and publish a mystery series. Last year, for the first time I made as much on my novel sales as I did from my pension income, and this year my fourth novel is a finalist for the inaugural Whistler Independent Book Award in the Crime Fiction category. (No, it’s not as well known in crime fiction circles as the “Edgar” is, but I’m okay with that.) After years of trying to write while I supported myself with a nine to five job, I now feel like I’m living my dream.
I’m lucky not to have to depend on my novels for all my income, but the financial returns (and encouragement from fans) are certainly a motivator to keep working on my series. I don’t expect to become rich, nor do I want to become famous, but I hope I can keep writing the kind of books I like to read for years to come.
Thanks for starting this discussion, Barbara (I always enjoy your posts on WU) and best of luck to all of those who commented.
Bravo on your first year earning as much from writing as from other sources! That’s a big milestone.
You make some excellent points Barbara, and I’m glad to see I’m not the only person whom Tierce’s article rubbed the wrong way.
I mean, I can totally sympathize with her personal desire for a steady and utterly dependable income doing EXACTLY what she wants for the rest of her life. But unless you’re rich and living off investment income, nobody gets to do that – let alone an artist. Sure, it’s fun to fantasize about, but to pour those sentiments into a whiny article for all the world to see… well, it reeks of entitlement to me, and I find that to be one of humanity’s least attractive traits (along with not using turn signals and mispronouncing the word “nuclear”).
The arts are one of the most risky ways to earn a living, and pretty much always have been. I don’t see that changing any time soon.
It’s not a pursuit for everybody, that’s for sure, and particularly not for the easily discouraged. And I think “the easily discouraged” are the tribe with whom Tierce is now finding herself identifying. I hope that doesn’t rob her of the satisfaction of all the praise and recognition her first book earned. That would be a shame, because she has much to be proud of – and much to be thankful for. After all, she has already achieved things that countless writers never have and never will. So maybe some gratitude might help her attitude (he said, rhymingly).
Thanks for a thoughtful piece on a subject we’re likely all up against in one way or another.
Keith,
I’m too lazy to check which country (Sweden?) it was and may still be that gives lifetime stipends to whom their arts council deems to be promising artists.
That ain’t the ‘Merikan way, to be sure, but it is spark of cultural wisdom, where art is elevated above the status of ‘product.’ We here don’t have that potential windfall and it makes our art different, because it imbues something different in those of us that create.
No great point I’m making, except that this notion made me smile when I first learned of it. We live in a place and time of profit being the river our boats “beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
It does sound like Tierce has a lot of talent (I haven’t read her book, although it’s the kind of thing I might like, so now I’ll add it to the TBR pile), and a lot of grit. She mentions being working class, and so she motivated herself to get through school, and grad school, and publish a novel that was well-received. I hope she’ll find her heart again.
But yeah, she sounds pretty discouraged. It ain’t an easy game.
Thank you so much for saying this, Barbara. It is such an enormously important thing that I feel we don’t recognise enough in this mad & wonderful game: we are not entitled to fame & fortune as writers. We aren’t, in fact, entitled to anything except to producing the best damn work we possibly can (and even that is more a requirement than an entitlement). Let the rest of the cards fall where they will, I think. It is about creating something beautiful and then crossing our fingers the universe does the rest of it for us.
I love your line, “Keep writing until you find the next thing.” It brought to mind that Seamus Heaney poem, ‘Digging’ — and the way in which writing really is this process of digging — without a map… (Which in turn, because I live in the land of picture books, made me think of SAM AND DAVE DIG A HOLE — which I just realized can be taken as a great big metaphor for what we do!)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/47555
I love that image: Sam and Dave, digging! I notice that I can plan all I wish, but nothing really happens until I start digging in.
I love your name, so much. <3
Great post, Barbara!
My fantasy of the Author Life during the lean years, the years when I was working two and sometimes three jobs to support my family, stumbling from one day to the next, had little to do with wanting to be an author. Instead it was a vision of life that comforted me when I fell into bed at night, a glimpse of nirvana.
I called it my White Room Dream: me, alone, in a white room with one window, a table and chair, a single cot. Paper and pencil. Nothing else.
Well, what would you expect from a single mom who’s stretched too thin? Don’t put me on Oprah; just leave me alone, please, just for a little while.
What I’ve actually found the most rewarding about my real author life are the way an audience sometimes responds when I read, someone saying that my book helped them or that they stayed up all night to finish it, the sense of accomplishment when I look at finished work (despite the niggling feeling that it could be better), and (further down the list) getting paid (little as it is). Those things are pretty great.
The white room fantasy is great. I had those fantasies myself at times. And yes, the real world of an writer can be pretty spectacular. Reader letters are especially amazing.
People tend to have this unrealistic view of what it means to be a writer. Even non-writers think those mega-hitters like King and Rowling are the standard, not the exception.
On the other hand, I understand where Tierce is coming from. I have two Masters degrees. I don’t have a MFA but getting a Masters is a lot of work and I’m up to my eyeballs in debt. But you push through the sleepless nights because you think the degree means something, it’ll give you clout. You get out of school and think the doors will just open. Why would I suffer through a Masters program otherwise? It can be disappointing when that doesn’t happen. Then you think, I have $200,000 in student loans and what do I have to show for it? What was the point of this degree, again?
I also have a different read on Tierce’s article. Namely, the bottom line is, it’s hard to write when you’re poor.
Then she gets the mail carrier job and discovers it’s hard to write when you’re exhausted from work.
I agree with both points.
When other people say, “Write anyway!” or “I know rich writers!” or “You have to work hard!”, I agree with those too. Either you have to figure out how to write while poor or around your job, or you have to write so well and so fast that you can make a living from it
You ask, “What kind of fantasies did you hold about the Author Life before you waded into this game?”
Perhaps I shouldn’t even be commenting here since I write nonfiction. Having said that, my fantasy was to write a book that became a “New York Times” bestseller and got me on Oprah. I didn’t achieve either and definitely won’t in the future.
Nonetheless, I have done okay. My books (mainly self-published) have now sold over 925,000 copies worldwide. Keep in mind that I self-published my first book in 1989 and lived under the poverty line for two years or so. Today, at the age of 67, I make a great income from my books that is likely better than 97 percent of the incomes of people my age. Because of this, in some ways, I am living a fantasy. In 2015, I made a pretax income that is higher by about $10,000 than what the Prime Minister of Canada officially makes. And I only worked about an hour or two a day in 2015.
No doubt, earning a great living is very satisfying, particularly in my so-called retirement years. But just as important are all the letters, emails, and phone calls that I have received from readers over the years — and still receive. As you say, “A writer is as thrilled by an earnest reader letter as by a great review by a big publication.”
Loved this article! Just wanted to stop by and say hello and thank you! Now, I’m getting back to work.
A wonderful post Barbara, that prompted me to explore the money question in my own blog as a First Monday Mentoring post which I linked to yours https://valerieparv.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/first-monday-mentoring-october-2016-where-does-money-fit-into-your-writing-life/ I also quote Donald Maass because I realised a long time back that freedom is the main reason I write for a living, considering myself blessed to be able to do so.