Mandy and I have been two a four-part series on our different approaches to starting writing careers. This week Mandy is on my blog with the final post detailing her path as what we’ve come to call “The Apprentice.”
You can check out the other posts in the set here:
Chandler on Jumpstarting a Writing Career and the Pitfalls of Diving in Headfirst
Mandy on Taking Time to Learn the Craft as the Apprentice
Chandler on Why Jumpstarting was the Right Path for Her and Where she is Now
The Apprentice Part 2
When I made the decision to suspend my writing career until further notice—until I had a novel that could go all the way—I knew it meant giving up some stuff.
It was easier when I categorized the two by activities involved.
If I wanted to start a writing career, I would get to…
Focus on building my writing platform. Networking aggressively with other bloggers. Making promotion and name-branding one of my priorities. Blog on a schedule.
Get involved with the industry. Attending book events, writer’s conferences, signings.
Research agents, publishing houses, market trends. Begin the agent hunt.
Get my novel ready for submissions in an aggressive, goal-oriented manner. Even though I knew the novel could be better if I gave myself more time to mature, and that this novel itself was only good, not brilliant.
Submit and writing small publishable material aggressively.
Write with deadlines and a production mindset.
That sounded like fun. Like dreams come true. By contrast, if I wanted to delve into my apprenticeship, I would have to…
Push myself to tackle writing problems and failures.
Seek out any weakness, any lacking, any cliches in my writing, and improve on them.
Engage in critique groups that involve long-term development of stories.
Bring each new novel the next level, and the next level, and the next, while learning from old failures.
Learn how to enjoy creativity for creativity’s’ sake, versus the goal of publication.
Learn not to distract or frustrate myself by spending too much time researching agents, engaging in self-promotion, or yes, even blogging.
Develop systems to balance writing with life, school, work, other passions, rising and falling motivations.
They were all good things. And I knew that if I wanted to survive at this, I’d need to learn both of them at some point. But trying to do both at once was impossible (for me anyway!) After blogging for less than two years, I was already burned out. Trying to keep up with other writers was more stress than help. And every time I sat down to write, I felt dogged by needing to write something publishable.
So I did the painful thing, the necessary thing for me, and pulled back. Way back. I took a hiatus from blogging, stopped following almost everyone on my bloglist, dropped out of AW, and gave myself permission to stop trying so very hard.
It was painful. My writing process slowed dramatically. All the other writers I knew who were pursuing their career started subbing manuscripts, getting agents, publishing short stories, and making gorgeous progress.
I missed the validation of publishing. I needed to learn how to find confidence in the work I was doing, and that I was doing it well.
And it took me a couple tries. Some awful novellas. Some half-started novels. Once I got away from all the publishing craziness, though, things started changing—I was able to delve into issues with my writing process, suffer through transformations, learn how to settle on a schedule where I got writing accomplished without feeling haunted by guilt. Nobody drove me: I learned to pursue it. The dedication I would need, someday to meet deadlines, came all those unrecognized hours plugging away at a novel I knew might never be published.
It was the absolute right thing for me to do. I needed to get away from the pressure, and give myself time to improve. Plus my sense of confidence grew leaps and bounds—I discovered that even if I was in college, during finals, with homework on weekends, I could still write. If nothing had come for a while and the creative wells were dry, it wasn’t the end of the world; I wasn’t going to “stop” being a writer.
At some point I’ll have to learn all those other things involved with a writing career; self-promotion, perseverance under querying, writing to deadline. I’m okay with that. I knew it going in. It was important for me to learn how to write—and be a writer—before trying to jump into publishing.
Thanks, Mandy, for the great topics! It’s been fun!
Mandy runs the awesome blog *Headdesk* where she goes by the name Creative A, the online persona for an ordinary girl, full-gospel Christian, novelist, and Web Design major. She’s a big fan of speculative fiction for young adults. Her own novel, MIRRORPASS, is a speculative YA undergoing edits. She’s published several small works of fiction and nonfiction in the past.
