Untangle the Necklace
And other metaphors about writing and success
Hi friends,
I am procrastinating editing my book. I have a clunky chapter that needs to be split up and I am at a coffeeshop instead of my home office and I would prefer to be able to print the manuscript out (I still have a printer, lol, I’m Gen X) and spread it out before me and cut and paste things together. Or at least see the paper and the screen at the same time. That would work! That’s what I need!
No, it is not what I need. Or, it would work but there are other ways to edit, too. I am just stalling because this is the hard part and stalling is easier than putting work in when you don’t know how it’s going to turn out.
I’ve also been circling a few ideas I’ve wanted to write about here. One is an updated post about how to be a full time writer (spoiler: it’s hard) and also how you make the jump from wherever you are to the next thing. Sometimes that is quitting your day job and writing full time. Sometimes that is the end of editing and the start of submitting. Sometimes that is from short stories to novels, articles to full length books. These feel connected but I am distracted by the pile of words that is my chapter one and it’s all just looking like, well, a pile of words.
I want a linear way to edit. I want a clear path that says cut this and add that and move this stuff over there. Obviously! Who wouldn’t want that! But that’s not how it works. I have to untangle the necklace, all the tiny, balled up, twisted, fiddly bits, one layer at a time. Sometimes it helps to undo the clasp, and sometimes it’s better to put it back together. Sometimes you have to smash it between your fingers some and roll it out and sometimes you have to pull just the right strand to unlock all of it. It’s never the same way twice, even if you do it one million times. Even if you’re the best necklace untangler in the world.
That’s the only way I’m going to get through this thorny chapter. One sentence at a time. Moving things around and moving them back. Cutting stuff and writing it back in later. It might become two chapters, maybe three. My editor might move half of it back to where it was originally. This is ok and right and good and the way it works. It is not wasted time or effort. It’s how the words get untangled.
When you want to do the next thing, make the jump, whether that’s from writing to querying or modest success to writing as a full time job, you have to untangle the necklace. It’s not going to work for you the way it did for someone else. You have your own needs (kids, insurance, mortgage, bills, accommodations, genre vagaries) and your friend has theirs. They might be able to quit their job after a two book deal, but that doesn’t mean you will. And you can’t count on that next two book deal, and neither can they. I know! It’s not fair!
It’s not like a regular job where you put in work and get paid for that effort (fairly or no). It’s also not like a regular job because you can work when you want, on what you want, at the pace you want, where you’re one of the bosses (your editor is kinda a boss in there, too), and where you automatically get your name on the door. I mean, who’s job is like that, that also delivers health insurance and a biweekly paycheck? Damn few! I’m mad this isn’t easier and doesn’t work out for more people. We should have government sponsored healthcare at the very least!!!!! But we don’t have that (yet???) so, if you want to write full time, you have to be the boss of your own business and that means taking care of all the details yourself. You do all the work, but you also get all the rewards. More or less.
When you want to jump to that next thing, your next big step, you have to take care of yourself. You prepare yourself for a soft landing however you can. And then? You leap. You write the book. You start the big edit wherever you can. You query the agents. You see how else you can pay the mortgage. Is it easy? Hell no. Are a lot of people successful? Not as many as we would like! But how many widget companies sell a million widgets on their first go? How many small businesses make it to their fifth anniversary? How many strike out and how many hit a home run? (Metaphors on metaphors.) It should be easier to be an artist! The government should bring back the WPA and socialize medicine, or at the very least crack down on the broken system we have. People should buy more books and publishers should pay authors more money! I want these things, too.
It is easy to answer these things with some capitalist bootstrap bullshit. If you work hard enough, you’ll reach your goals! I mean, sometimes that’s true! I can’t promise you anything, though. Publishing is not a meritocracy. This newsletter is getting depressing!!!! I’m sorry!!!! I’m not going to sell you a bill of goods, though. I’m not going to say if you work hard enough you’ll achieve all your goals. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If I could promise that, I would promise it to everyone. But I can’t and no one can and all any of us can do is find fulfillment elsewhere. Do the work however we can. Pay the bills however we can. Vote and agitate for change to help ourselves and others.
And keep writing. Why, in the face of all this uncertainty and inequity? Because writing fulfills you in some way. Because you want to and if you can’t do even a little bit of what you want to in life, then that just sucks. If you want a sure way to make money, writing isn’t it. This model closes the door to so may necessary voices, and, well, I don’t know how to fix that on an individual level, though I do think every little bit people on my side of things can do helps somewhat. I know that all my pep talks are everything’s bad! do it anyway! and this one isn’t different. But I also mean to reset expectations here. Expect it to he hard, uncertain, and opaque, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised when something works out. There isn’t a sure path to success that someone is hiding from you, not even me with this newsletter (keep subscribing though please!!!). This is all the same for my job, too. If there was one path to success, I would know what it was, I would do it for all my clients, and we would rake in the dough. Hell, even if there were 18 paths to success it would be easier. But there are not. There is no linear path to success. Anyone can get there a million different ways. You don’t learn the one path to get there. You learn how to untangle the necklace, your necklace. And then you do it again.
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OXOXOXOXOOX,
Kate
Fantastic post as always, Kate. I am lucky enough to make a living as a full-time writer, largely because I am a writer-for-hire who does a LOT of ghostwriting, and because I'm okay with driving used cars and making other sacrifices--all to support my passion for writing novels that don't always get sold. So I know all about untangling necklaces (great metaphor). The thing to remember is that you have to write enough first to CREATE tangled necklaces before you can have that sublime pleasure of following the chains, threads, or whatever to turn them into something you and other people can wear with pride.
Whew. That was probably a metaphor that went on a LOT longer than it should have! Sorry!
Beautifully written and insightful and helpful, too.