Despair in the Writing Life
I had a friend email me tonight utterly forlorn about a publishing deal gone south. It made me think about despair in the writing life. It’s a companion who keeps coming back to you no matter how far you’ve gotten. Things go wrong. What you have visualized does not come to pass. That opportunity you thought you had turns to dust in your hands.
This is most difficult for beginning writers. If you have not yet held your own book in your hands, despair over the here-and-how can seem like an eternity. You walk into the bookstore and your book is not there, no matter how much you want it to be there. It seems as if no matter what you do, you will never see your book on the shelves.
But it’s important to know that despair is there for published writers, too. The setback that threatens a whole career. The sense of being so close to something major, which then recedes, like some amazing deep-sea creature glimpsed by a diver through the murk, except the murk takes hold and it disappears from sight. Granted, a writer with a few published books has perspective. That writer knows, if they think about it, that the despair one feels today can turn to triumph in a month or a year or a decade.
Because a writer’s career does usually last decades. And the ephemeral quality of the current moment is exactly that. There is always the next story, the next book, the next narrative. What slips through the hands now comes back willingly later.
Sometimes, it is more satisfying when it comes to you later. Sometimes, despair is the vanguard of great success. But the most important thing is to somehow be able to zoom back, to do the reverse of Google Earth, and to put the situation in its maximum perspective. And then to continue on–to write, to create, to continue doing what you love.
Note: As Jonathan Strahan points out to me, this applies to most artistic/creative endeavors. Well, life generally, too.
May 7, 2008 at 5:59 am
Which quite accurately summarizes my entire young adult love life.
May 7, 2008 at 7:15 am
LOL! Don’t it though?!
Jeff
May 7, 2008 at 7:18 am
I think the worst despair moment for me was having an offer on the table from a major publisher back in 2005 for Goblin Quest, then having the publisher withdraw the offer. That book eventually found a home, as you know, but that episode knocked me down hard.
I’m sure the business will kick my butt again over the years, but like you say, it helps a lot once you finally get a book or three out there. For me, it provides a certain level of validation that wasn’t there before. No matter what happens, I know now that I can write a publishable book and sell it. Even if I have to reboot my career as Happy J. Bobswaggler, I still know I can do this.
It’s an emotional roller coaster, though. I think the wisest thing I ever did as a writer was to marry a trained counselor :)
May 7, 2008 at 7:51 am
Ow. It’s good to know that, Jim. I mean, for writers who don’t have books out. I’ve definitely been in situations where I thought “this is it! I get this deal or it all goes to hell.” Usually turns out there’s always another deal, another break, out there.
But, man, you’ve got to have a good mental attitude to get through what you describe, though.
JV
May 7, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Me and despair are old drinking buddies, seeing as how I’m working on my twelfth novel manuscript and still trying to sell the first one. Every once in a while I start to wonder why the heck I’m wasting my time writing books no one will read.
And then this weekend I reread some of my old stuff and spent three days in a click trance poring over novels I finished in 06 and 07. It was so great to spend time with old friends that I feel recharged. It was like, “Oh yeah, that’s why I started doing this. Because IT’S FUN.”
May 8, 2008 at 1:31 am
i think one needs rejection (writers included) to remind him/her that the lens through which one sees the world is singularly unique (and therefore not always understood by others). this is precisely why one should tirelessly continue to explore his/her perspective, and to make an effort to express this perspective through some form of creative articulation. to do this effectively is to construct a bridge that can unite two seemingly disparate realms of perception. i think this is the part where hits of acid fall like rain from hovering clouds and music from ‘the doors’ plays in the distance.. i guess i’m saying that the “amazing deep sea creature” that the diver gets a glimpse of is within us!
… speaking of glimpses, jeff, i was wondering if you would be so kind as to read a slipstreamish short story i just finished. i am a ‘writer’ trying for the first time to be published. i read your story in the “feeling very strange” collection, and i was impressed by your story’s intelligence and imagination! my story is just seven pages (single spaced), but i channeled a lot of energy and effort into it. i would sincerely appreciate even basic feedback. Let me know.. Thanks, Jeff!
alan thomas
mindfuli2004@yahoo.com