Pride vs. Joy in Writing
“Pride and joy” often go together, in descriptions of possessions, accomplishments, even children. It’s wonderful when both go together.
But what if they do not? Must they, in fact, do so? And if one were required to choose between the two, which is the better?
When it comes to writing, I say joy.
In context, I have in fact been proud of most of the things I have written. There are different reasons to be proud. I can be proud of the sheer amount of labor put into something. I can be proud that I overcame something within myself in order to write a work. There is pride in the result, of course, especially when it meets all of my expectations. And of course, pride in the impact one of my creations could have on those that read it. I hear there is even financial pride, when an author makes money from their work, though thus far that’s a mythical concept in my life.
There are, then, many different type of pride, cause by various things. But does pride in and of itself bring joy? It can, of course. but is that inevitable? Not to me.
Though I may be a certain type of proud whenever I finish writing something, it isn’t always a source of joy. Sometimes I have a deadline to meet. I do good work, proof read, insist on quality and I am often proud of the result. But joy? Not in such cases. If something I wrote got syndicated and I made a million from it, that would probably be followed by joy, but the source of joy would come from the result of my writing, not the finished product, or even the process.
There should be joy in your process, and your results as a writer, far more often than there is not. Joy inspires your best writing. Joy keeps you working. Jopy makes it worth the time when almost nobody cares about your final; product. (As has been the case, so far, with my first novel, Flowers of Dionysus which very few people, even among friends, have read.) That continues to sadden and disappoint me. Yet I took joy in writing it for any number of reasons, and I feel joy that it exists.
I’m also proud of that novel, so I suppose it’s fair to ask if joy brings pride. To tell you the truth, I’m not as certain in that direction. But I do know that if you write what gives you joy, you won’t be as concerned with pride as you otherwise might be. I, for example have the ability to write a three volume epic tale set in 1840’s Prague. Such an undertaking would require years of research, years or writing, and rewriting, and, fear of flying aside would probably require at least one trip to Prague. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of words would be produced in that effort, not to mention the “darlings” I would probably have to kill in the process. No doubt such a work would take center stage in my artistic life, possibly to the expense of other things, for ten years at least.
And if I completed it? I’d be damn proud of myself. I would have completed an exhausting, laborious process and survived it. Whether or not anybody would ever read it, I’d be proud that I’d finished it, even as I was depressed over nobody ever caring about it.
And I would feel almost no joy at all during any facet of the process. I think Prague would be an interesting city to visit some day, and I’d probably learn some interesting history in the course of the undertaking, but a three volume epic set in 1840’s Prague does not speak to me. It doesn’t move me. In short, it holds no potential joy. Pursuing it, just to have something to be proud of, (and maybe for some, a chance at fame and awards of some kind) would make me miserable. If I became rich because of it, I would have some joy in the money, but the price would be tens years plus of artistic misery.
And it probably would make no money, because I’m not likely to produce work that will bring great joy to others if I was miserable the whole time while writing it.
Winning contests, awards, acclaim and praise are wonderful things for the artist, no doubt. To that end, I’m not suggesting you should never think about those things. Nor am I suggesting that you will never have to work hard even on manuscripts that bring you joy. But I think joy should always be the fuel that keeps a writer going through the harder times. Pride will come later if joy is first, most of the time. But if you use pride as your compass and the joy never comes, what’s it all been for?
Release Date for “Murder. Theatre. Solitaire.”
It’s July 5th!
Okay, I know that wasn’t the most exciting, memorable release-day announcement. But it’s not necessary to make everything a song and dance number, is it? Besides, I’ll be talking about the date more than once between now and then.
I guess, at least for right now, I have come to realize that the bells and whistles approach is not one of my strengths when it comes to promotion. I’m not suggesting I won’ promote at all, of course I will. I have to. But in the past I’ve tried the bombastic approach that works great for some of my colleagues. In my thus far short self-publishing career, that approach hasn’t yielded what it does for others. So I’ve decided to promote in a style more like me-enthusiastic but calm and straight to the point…most of the time.
Collectors of factoids might notice that my previous two books were released on June 21, the first day of summer. Why not use that date again? To tell you the truth, there is a tiny amount of superstition and quasi-tradition in my thinking, which almost forced me into using that same date again. Repetition and such. Yet not only do I think I could use an extra week or so to get read for publication this year, I’ve also told myself recently that when I can, I should shake up things. I realize that to many of you, picking a date for release of this year’s book that is different from previous year’s doesn’t sound much like a shake up. But to a sometimes overly ritualized guy such as myself, a little change can mean a lot going forward.
And why not July 4th, instead of the 5th? I wouldn’t want to steal the USA’s thunder of course.
I’m looking at starting with a $1.99 price. Might decide on a dollar by the end of the process.
So, the date is out there, and I am accountable to it. And of course I’ll be mentioning things about the book a bit more often now, so prepare for that.
The Other Type of Rejection for Writers
Though its usefulness is questionable, people who declare their intention to be a writer will hear a warning from, well, just about everywhere not long afterward.
Get comfortable with rejection, because you’ll be facing it a lot…from agents, publishers, journals, contests…rejection is part of life as a writer.
Okay, yes, it is. I can’t deny it. But these are all “active rejections” so to speak. You submit to something, and the powers that be choose not to use your work.
But there’s another type of rejection for writers that I don’t think gets mentioned as often, though it occurs as much if not more than rejections like the ones mentioned above; it’s the passive, silent rejection from those who know you best.
Most writers have families. A few even have a friend or two, even though we can be a neurotic bunch. When we’re lucky, one or two people from each group reads our stuff. But if you’re a writer, my guess is you know what it’s like to have your friends and relatives take only a passing interesting in they words you have bled out onto the page.
-You’re wrote a novel? That’s great. Keep me posted on how it goes. Oh, it came out three months ago? Well, I’ve been real crazy busy with this new job, and I hardly check my Facebook feed anymore. But I’m proud of you!
–Yeah, I saw your novel on Amazon, go you! Money’s real tight these days, and I just can’t spare that 99 cents at the moment. But as soon as I can…
–I’m not much of a reader, really. Just magazines and such, and I don’t have an ereader. I used to but I like never used it, I gave it to my cousin. But you wrote a whole novel, that’s impressive!
And so on.
The sad, blunt bottom line is this; most of your friends and family don’t give a shit about reading your stuff. Oh they love/respect you as much as they ever did, and they want good things for you. They really, really hope you become this big huge successful writer…based on other people buying your book. But read it themselves? Not so much.
And please don’t fool yourself into thinking that these same people will respect the disappointment they cause you, and never ask you for anything in the future, because there’s a good chance that as soon as one of them starts making fudge and selling it out of their Elantra door-to-door, you’ll be getting an email asking if you’d like to place one of the first orders.
What’s the reason that the percentage of friends and family that read a writer’s stuff is so low most of the time? Don’t any of them realize that the simple act of downloading an ebook, or even better, leaving a rating or review of it online if they liked it can move mountains in the world of an author? (Particularly an indie author like myself.) They should know it; after all, you’ve told them after each time you publish something.
So why doesn’t it move them? I don’t know. If I knew that, I’d probably already be a world famous author. The only thing I can advise is to remember the lyrics from the old Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young tune, Teach Your Children:
If they told you, you would cry, so just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
Part Time Job
Over the last few weeks, my blogging schedule hasn’t been quite as regular as it normally is, or as I’d like it to be. That’s because I recently started a part time job as an assistant housekeeper at a local assisted living home. My mother is the head of housekeeping there. She’d been needing some help as her workload has increased somewhat over the last year for various reasons. Plus extra money is good. (But the main reason I took the job is to make my mother’s life easier. But don’t tell her I said that.)
By and large I am happy with the job. It’s only a few hours a week, but for most of those hours, I’m left to my own devices. If you know me, you know that’s a huge plus. And if I do need help with something, I need only seek out my own mother.
There is a certain satisfaction to making something clean that starts out dirty. I particularly enjoy vacuuming carpets for this reason; dirt is there, I move a machine around in a regular, almost meditative pattern, and moments later dirt is not there. Same with wiping down the windows, or cleaning up the metal elevator.
There’s a task that’s in many ways suited to my brain, cleaning elevators. Alone in a quiet box, making a collection of metallic rectangles as shiny as possible. (Okay, there are some wooden parts to one of the elevators, but my point is the same.) There is also a remnant of childlike appreciation with my mind for elevators. I think every parent at some point has to tell their kids to quit playing with an elevator: Don’t push all the buttons at once. Get out of the way, people need to get in there. Stop sticking your hand out to make the door open again.
When my sister and I were young and Mom would take us on vacation, one of my favorite things to do was go on the elevator to the high floors of the building, (where Mom would never book a room) and come back down. She’d let us do that sometimes.
All by way of saying, unless they suffer from claustrophobia, I dare say most kids love elevators for whatever reason, but in many cases don’t get to use them unless they have some reason, or very lax parents. Adult me now gets to go in and out of an elevator any time I damn well please. Actually, I usually take the stairs for fitness reasons, unless I have a lot of cumbersome items I need to move, but the point remains.
Yes, I do clean bathrooms. I doubt anyone looks forward to cleaning bathrooms, but I don’t dread it either. It is what it is, and it’s only part of my job anyway. I admit, probably my least favorite part, but I get to do them on my terms at least. Chemicals bug me a bit at times, but we have organic stuff I use too, which isn’t as bad.
I mentioned the motion of vacuuming being meditative before. You won’t have to research long to find all kinds of traditions in various religions about meditative cleaning. It’s a mindfulness thing. Cleaning and picking up keeps you right in the present. My particular mind still wanders and worries far more than it should even when I am on the job, but the nature of my tasks do afford me the chance to practice mindfulness and presence, which i do.
And of course, the residents. I don’t do much directly with them, though naturally I see them all the time, and I’m cordial with most. They always get the right of way in the hallways. That’s how I prefer it. It’s there home, after all. I try to remember that in everything I do; people live there.
And of course, people die there, as happen just last night. Actually, the resident died after a brief stay in the hospital, but I was present when the emergency vehicles took her to the hospital. That particular woman stayed mostly to herself, but I do recall seeing her here and there. An odd thing to get used to, the near-expectation of death “before long” in such places. The quickness with which everything is normal after it happens throughout the place.
But it’s not a place of death. The residents are on varying levels of functionality. Some are healthy, but just retired. Some in wheelchairs, and one that never leaves her room. (I don’t go into private rooms, as my domain is the public spaces.) But those that live there play games, watch movies. Even exercise. I admit I thought I might find working there depressing before I started, with so many people that have health issues. There is a tiny fraction of that, but mostly, it really is just a place people live and work, like so many others all over the world. One small community, part of a larger one, which is part of a larger one, and so on in the obvious outward spiral.
I think about that spiral particularly on days when I am outside doing work. Most of what I do is inside, but I have a few outside tasks, one of which is to bring in the large trash cans once a week. The person walking their dog, the car driving by, people walking into their jobs in the building across the street. A mosaic of “alive” of which I am a chip. I have always been so of course, by virtue of my being human, but I am somehow more aware of is as the scraping of the trash cans wheels on the brick walkway in front of the home echoes through the block as I drag it through the morning sunshine and toward the back of the building. Pull up, and I am visibly one of the cogs in the morning machine that cranks out a day in the city. It’s all sort of Walt Whitmanesque in a way.
I’m a writer and an actor. I imagine I will always be so, in one way or another. Those are my callings, and I make money doing them, here and there. I don’t imagine I will still be a part time housekeeper 30 years from now. Yet today, and for the foreseeable future, I am an artist making some money at a job not connected with my calling.
Or is it? Are not the concepts of story, character, expression, art, service all at play during the few hours a week I clean the public areas of that home? They are. My preferred form of them is the stage and page, but I’d have to be an elitist or a fool to believe they are absent during my part-time gig.
Cover Reveal: “Murder. Theatre. Solitaire.”
Okay, so here it is! No countdown, or contest, or giveaway or anything of that nature. I’m just happy to share with all of you the official cover of my upcoming murder mystery novel.
Pretty cool, right? And simple. Or cool because it’s simple.
The cards were a pre-existing stock image. The words, obviously, are my additions.
I tried many variations on font and size, all of which had their charms. But after consulting with friend (and designer of my two previous covers) J. Lea López, this one came out on top.
Without giving away plot points, I like to think the title with this cover sheds light on the major aspects of the book a reader can expect to find. (A theatre director who enjoys solitaire gets tangled up in a murder mystery, and uses his theatrical perspectives to try to solve same.)
I’m happy with how much I’ve learned about designing a cover myself this time around. I grant you, it makes use of the stock image. But compared to what I understood of the mechanics of this sort of thing last year, and the year before, I’m much further along the indie publishing journey this time, insofar as how much I have done on my own. I’m not saying I’ll do it all by myself for every single cover from now on, but there’s a certain satisfaction in doing so this time.
As for the book itself…no release date yet. I’m still aiming for early summer, but I wouldn’t want to announce and have to take it back. But I would call this the home stretch. I want to tidy up a few scenes, and add an element or two here and there. Plus one final review for errors, and it will be ready for formatting and publishing.
By all means, stay tuned!
Ty Unglebower 