The Care and Feeding of a Writer's Ego

(The text below is the collected wisdom of several years' worth of writing teachers, distilled into a single lecture for your edification. This essay was last updated September 7, 2006. It is copyright 2006 by Jennifer Pelland, and cannot be redistributed without my express permission.)

Writing is fun. Publishing is hell. Here's some tips on how to balance the two.

First of all, you need to come to terms with why it is that you're trying to be published. Any of these are valid reasons to try for publication:

• you want an audience for your stories
• you crave some measure of fame
• you think it'll help you meet cool people
• you want to show the world that you're more than just a file clerk
• you want to make your mother proud

Or any other reason you can think of. Writing is about expression, but publication is about ego. Egoless people don't care if other people read their stories. People who write solely for the joy of writing don't care if other people read their stories. It takes some measure of ego and self-absorption to believe that you've created something that other people damned well ought to read.

And that's okay.

Of course, there's nothing like a vicious story critique, a pointed rejection, or a negative review to neatly puncture a hole in that ego. The hole might be teensy, throwing you off of your game for a mere half an hour, or it could cripple you for months, leaving you unable to write another word.

Do any of these sound familiar?

"My god, they're right, I'm a fraud. I've been deluding myself all this time. I'm so embarrassed. All those editors must be laughing at me." *insert weeping*

"Those bastards don't understand real talent! Fuck 'em all. I'm not going to waste my time on them anymore." *insert sound of TV remote*

"The first editor said this story was too purple, and the second editor said it was too sparse. There has to be a way to make them both happy." *insert sound of never-ending revisions*

"I...I...I..." *insert sound of muse fleeing for three years*

Yes, sometimes you have to stop and lick your wounds, but you can't do it forever. Here's some ideas for how to take care of yourself when things get tough.

1. Minimize wallowing: Creative people are very good at getting into funks. I tell myself it's because writers have to be more in touch with their emotions than the average person. Otherwise, how could we give our stories any kind of emotional resonance? Self-delusion? Probably. But it's part of my coping mechanism.

   Anyhow, because we care so deeply for our stories, it can often hurt like hell when they're cut down. So make sure to minimize your wallowing time. Put rejected stories back in the mail within 24 hours (on weekends or holidays you can stretch this to the next day the post office is open if your target market is one that only takes paper). If your crit group savages your latest submission, set the story aside until you can look at their comments with a clear head, and work on something else in the meantime. And if you're stinging too much to get any writing done, go online and do market research, or research agents. Be productive in a way that doesn't involve writing. That way, you'll still feel like you're in the game, plus you'll be doing yourself a favor by having a pile of new markets/agents queued up for when the next story is ready.

   Finally, it's harder to wallow if you can find weird rejection milestones to celebrate. For instance, every 50 rejections, I buy beer for myself, and every 100 rejections, I have a beer party. I get my friends together and hoist my beer high, crying, "To 100 rejections. Fuck 'em all!" Then my friends cry "Fuck 'em all!" and we drink. I know other writers who look at each rejection as an opportunity to say: "This is yet another failed attempt to grind me down." If counting rejections is too painful for you, then by all means, don't. But if you can bear to count them, you can wear them as a badge of pride and celebrate them as appropriate.

2. Commiserate with other writers: It's good to have people to share war stories with when you're feeling down and need a bit of encouragement. I'm on a few writing email lists, and have a lot of writers on my LiveJournal friends list. When things look bleak, I can shoot out an email, or make a protected post on my journal, and pretty soon, a commiseration-fest starts up with other writers sharing sympathies and their own tales of woe. It lets me know that I'm not alone in my struggle to crack into the publishing big time. And for me, that's a big help. If I can see that [insert name of author who's doing better than me] went through a lot of the same crap that I'm going currently going through when they were at the same stage in their career, it's a great encouragement to keep trying. If they could do it, then so can I.

3. Aim high, but be realistic about the outcome: You should always submit your stories to the very best markets first. Always. But you shouldn't expect to have your first publication credit be Asimov's. Yes, some writers can make that claim, and we hate them for it, but know that they're the minority. So when the inevitable rejection comes in from Asimov's, shrug, congratulate yourself for trying, and then send the story to Analog. When their rejection comes in, shrug, congratulate yourself for trying, and then send it to F&SF. Never beat yourself up for not making it into a top-tier market. But do keep trying.

   Here's a stat that might make you feel a little better about that Asimov's rejection: they receive approximately 800 unsolicited manuscripts a month. If you look at their TOCs, you'll see that at least half, if not three quarters of the stories in each issue are solicited (in other words, from big-named authors who they print several times a year). So out of those 800 unsolicited manuscripts each month, they choose maybe three for publication. It's a lot harder to feel bad about a rejection from one of the big boys when you realize how long the odds are.

4. Take breaks when necessary, but keep them finite: If it's really getting to be too much, take a month-long break. Circle the end date of your break on the calendar, and enjoy the time off. Read. Watch movies. Take up cross-stitch. Wash the cat. Whatever. But don't let the impending start date haunt you. You don't need to write a novel on that day. In fact, your first day back might not involve any writing at all. You might want instead to simply re-read your last work in progress to get the back-brain engaged on it again. Then your next day could involve scribbling out notes about what to do next with the story. Ease into it. Don't scare yourself into another break.

   Also, some people are seasonally non-creative. There may be some times of the year when you just can't get anything done. For me, winter (northern hemisphere) can be tough. First, Christmas shopping is good at taking over my creativity. I have a hard time thinking about a story when I'm trying to figure out what to buy for everyone on my list. Sometimes, I can get going again shortly after the holidays, but then I usually get hit with February blahs, which can stretch into the March blahs if we're having a particularly dreary New England winter. So I've learned not to beat myself up if my productivity flags during those months. Other folks might have trouble during spring when their allergies kick in, or parents might find it impossible to write during school vacations, or maybe someone else might find it impossible to write while they're in rehearsals for a play. Find your natural rhythm and work with it.

5. Have projects that you can turn to simply for the love: I'm in the middle of writing a novel that I know will never sell. So why am I writing it? Because it's fun. I've smashed several horrible ideas together into an ugly lump, and am running with it. Any time I get hammered by tough crits on a story that I thought was really good, or have had a few too many pointed rejections come in, and I find myself wondering why I keep putting myself through all this misery, I whip out this novel and write another terrible chapter or two. It reminds me that writing is supposed to be fun. Without the fun, what's the point? It's practically impossible to support yourself solely as a fiction author. Between the pressures of the day job, and of keeping the dishes clean and the pantry stocked, and of keeping the family happy and the cats fed, why write if you don't enjoy it? It's good to be motivated to be successful, but not to the point of burn-out. So have a silly project that you can turn to to remind yourself of that.

6. Avoid potentially self-destructive behaviors: Don't become one of those people who can only write with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. For starters, it's a cliché, and those are to be avoided. But also, neither habit is very good for you. If you ever have to quit one or both, you'll have a very difficult time writing without them. Don't give up exercise in exchange for writing either. Not only is exercise good for your general health, but also you think better when your blood's moving, so by becoming a computer potato, you're depriving yourself of good thinking time. Don't drown your writing sorrows in drugs or alcohol. Again, it's not very good for you, and drinking has a way of turning a case of ennui into a sobbing fit. Remember, your brain is a part of your body, so if you don't treat yourself right, it'll negatively affect both your creativity and your coping skills.

7. Finally, remember all those reasons I listed why people might want to be published? Realize that being published likely won't accomplish any of that: It's good to be motivated, and if it takes a measure of self-delusion to get you to revise your stories to perfection and then get them in the mail, then that's fine. But keep it within reason. Don't engage in self-destructive fantasies about what publishing will bring, because when it doesn't, you will hurt worse than you did when you got your first rejection letter.

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