Kind of a sad post at Ecstatic Days. I always think, Oh, if I were only published, I’d have it made. But Jeff Vandermeer writes:
I’m deeply upset this morning because of something that happened, really, more than a week ago. Which is to say, a friend who is a published novelist–an excellent writer–basically decided to pack it in.
This bit about those who “come to the writing life later” hits a little too close to home:
But the writing life is hard, and it is a constant struggle to keep the engine running, to make progress, often in the face of random cruelty, stupidity, incompetence, and indifference.
You get scar tissue. You get paranoid at times. You, above all, make yourself vulnerable in many different ways, even if you don’t show this to many other people. Letting go of all of this can be a relief or a release, even if it means giving in, or, even, giving up something, or part of something, that you love.
For those who weren’t born into the writing life, it’s even tougher. If you grow up writing and you start submitting in your teens, you develop a very thick skin. You are still vulnerable and you are still susceptible to the same frustrations, paranoia, envy, and everything else that comes with the territory. But you tend to bounce back faster.
If you only come to the writing life later, you don’t have that protection. You don’t have that extra layer of resilience, in that context. This also applies to many of what I term “fast risers”–the kind of writer whose first book or first series of stories achieves a kind of critical mass in reviewers’ and/or readers’ minds. Some of these writers, too, have difficulty later on, if they find themselves in any kind of difficulty. They just aren’t at first mentally prepared for it.
Check out the comments, especially this alternate take on the subject by Richard Grayson.
Filed under: authors, books, writing Tagged: | careers, Ecstatic Days, Jeff Vandermeer, novelists, Richard Grayson
