Pep Talk: Ways to Announce That You're a Successful, Unpublished Writer (And Have the World Agree)

The only painting Van Gogh sold in his life time:
 “Red Vinyard at Aries”

This "Pep Talk" post was published at the Grub Daily, by yours truly, under my other name:

“I love writing,” said a Grubbie in a one-to-one Career Boost, “but whenever I announce that I’m a writer, someone always asks me what novels I have in print.  When I tell them I’m unpublished, they give me a pitying look, and I feel like a failure.”

Of course, this writer is far from being a failure.  She is working at her craft, devoting time to her writing, and producing great work.  But in a society that too often believes lies about writers, we have to use some activism and turn those lies around.

Here are some of the key lies that the world too often believes about writers:

1. You’re only a successful writer if you’re published by paying markets, such as the magazines that you can buy in Barnes & Noble.

2. You’re only a successful writer if you’ve published a book-length work with a big publishing house.

3. It is hard to write a book, but if it is good, you’ll easily get it published and earn money from the royalties.

4. If you don’t publish a book, you can’t write very well and you’re certainly not a professional.

5. If you’re not earning large amounts of money, you’re not successful in terms of your career.

6. If you self-publish, it means you aren’t talented and/or professional.

All of these are lies.  And ultimately, they’re boring lies.  Plus they are easily disproven.  For instance, Anais Nin self-published Under a Glass Bell because she couldn’t find a publisher.  She sold a tiny amount of copies, until the little book of literary stories made its way into the hands of an editor and was reviewed by the New Yorker.  Fame at last.  Then we have Van Gogh who sold one—just one—painting in his life (and who wants to argue that he wasn’t a serious artist?).  What ‘s more, the great works of British Medieval authors were given away—to music, sometimes—by oral storytellers on the streets.  Grateful donations were optional.  And even further back in history, Anglo Saxon England saw its oral poets as being so vital that they bonded together people of all different classes through the essential power of story.  In fact, story wasn’t generally bought or sold, story was a right.

Of course, these are notions that we can use to argue that writing success isn’t about glitz and money.

Now, I argue that it’s exciting when one of us stands up and says, “I know society views things that way, but I see them differently.”  That shows initiative, rebelliousness [...] 

If you'd like to read the rest of this post, please visit the Grub Street Daily where I pen the "Pep Talk" column under my other name...