80% of people say they want to write a book.
97% of writers abandon their novel before it’s published.
Recently, I met up with an old writer’s group. We 4 women sipped our iced waters and enjoyed our $20 meal platters in the upscale wine bar (their choice) and chatted about what we’d been up to the past couple of years.
One lady shared that she completed her memoir years ago, started work on another, continues to write poetry, and has had some screenplays published, produced and performed with a local theater group.
Great!
What about everyone else?
“My husband died. He was sick for a long time. I’m dating someone new, who is much older than me. I often have to take care of him,” said one woman.
“My husband and I are empty nesters, so we travelled Europe for our 30th year anniversary,” said another.
I offered congrats to the one and condolences to the other, then I asked them if they’d been writing. Well… no.
So, 2 out of 4, half of us (still) write. I feel let down, discouraged a little. This is, after all, how we each know each other. Writing is or was our common ground.
Now we’re no more than a country club.
We used to get together on Monday evenings at our local library to write and talk about writing.
Like many activities, the pandemic paused all that.
Somehow, though, masked and outside, we got together the following summer to again catch up and write. That was 4 and a half years ago.
“I think often about your characters often from (such and such book).” I said to one lady. “Are you still writing them?”
“Which book,” she asked.
I could only ramble off a little of the plot.
What writer would not feel pleased when a reader remembers well the characters that writer dreamed up and built on the page? But the pleasure she had was only momentary. No sooner had a grin appear as it disappeared, waved away in sync with her hand, as if sweeping her imagination off and back to the side.
She shook her head. “Oh, no, no. I haven’t done any writing since my parents died. My kids are going into college, so I’m working more hours. No time for writing.”
I might have asked if she’d written while on her trip to Europe but instead dropped the subject.
We enjoyed our meals and talked about EVERYthing BUT writing, the rest of the time. When the waitress asked if we wanted anything else. Perhaps a dessert menu? “No, no. We’re all set. Check please.”
One woman, an attorney, had to rush to meet a client.
“Well, we should do this again,” another said.
Should we though?
I want, no, I need to work, to be around, absorb the mindset of other writers. And writers are those who write, as Jeff Goins has made clear.
I need to network with we who commit to practicing the writer’s craft. To honor the craft is to adopt the same mindset as a lawyer, doctor, or musician or artist does. They commit to their practices. Practice is what we do regularly. It’s what we make time to learn and do and study and improve at. A habit, if you will. A lifestyle.
What does it mean to be a writer?
Writing is our practice. Also, it’s a calling. (Don’t doctors also say that practicing medicine is their calling?) Writers are called as well.
If there’s wisdom I gleaned from that lunch meeting, it’s the fact that life also calls. And, just like a phone call or a doorbell ring, just like a knock on the door, there is also a knock on the heart that we can either answer or just wait and walk away until the knocking stops. (If we wait long enough, it will stop… a tragedy.)
I attend another writer’s group in a nearby town, and these people write. They commit to writing, they share their writing. Twice a month when we get together, we talk all and mostly about writing. And we practice writing. We learn about writing. We share tips and tricks and tidbits with each other.
Those Tuesday nights, I jump in my seat because we are together “geeking” out talking about all things writing, even the lady who doesn’t write (yet) but loves reading and still shows up each week to take part in the writing exercises.
We give critiques; a few meetings ago we learned about how to deliver what is called a “sandwich:” layer nice cushy “bread” on top. This might mean you start with a sincere compliment, then you share what you think might be written differently, or why something felt unclear, on either side of your suggestion of what you think didn’t work, what you’d like changed, then end with what you liked.
Each meeting then, we are sent home with a writing prompt to practice our writing between meetings and await the next member’s story to critique.
The Benefit of Writing Groups
Writing is a solitary, but writers aren’t forced to isolate. Like any tribe, we need each other.
My favorite dream for decades is to live, breathe and practice as a full-time author. That seemingly solitary lifestyle appeals to me, but even that, today, means I have to be social. Even in major publishing houses, 99% of authors have to do their own marketing. I personally know a full-time romance author who does all the things including publishing once a year, who claims to work 10-hour days.
Grateful that today I seem to have more time (and money) to write full time. Now, I sometimes deal with a focus problem.
But I have writer’s groups, online and off, writing courses online, 2 laptops, unlimited supply of writing craft books and novels to inspire, prayer, and the motivation to fully rise up and answer to this call, and surrender to whatever form that may take.
How about you? Does your writing life look anything like you’d imagined it?
I'd say if you can let it slip like that, then you aren't called. And a calling is what it is, no doubt about it. To write for a career is just a very raw, very visceral wrangle with a world that mainly wants and encourages you stop, and hands you all sorts of exit routes. It's not a dramatic struggle, often quite dreary, but it is always there.
The beauty of it is, it's simple. In the end, if you realise you have the specific discomfort that only writing will ease, then, even after long dry spells, you won't be happy until you are back, turning up to write, for years, and years, and maybe for ever. It's quite simple, and there's no need to think about it too much. It's true, writers write. They can't not.
I’m in it for the long run. I may have long pauses, though, but I write still every day. It may not be published.