We’re all just a bunch of selfish pen-pushers who love our own projects more than anything else.
I’m frustrated. Can you tell I’m frustrated?
Since starting on this journey of writing fiction, I’ve been through many online writer’s groups and I’m still looking for a place that would actually feel wholesome.
A lot of these groups are super toxic. People are there because they like whining about not writing more than they actually like to write. They’re there because they want help from others, but are unwilling to help others in return (or they agree to read for you in return and all they ever say is “It’s great” without any kind of further explanation). Or they just want people to tell them their stories are amazing, and don’t want any constructive feedback.
One group I was in was obsessed with being anti-AI and were compiling lists of software and cover artists who use AI. Their favourite pastime was complaining about how AI is ruining the industry of fiction books. Fear permeated that group.
But what was I expecting? When you don’t have faith in yourself and your own skill, it makes sense that you’ll be so afraid of people “stealing your words”. But if you publish your book, it’s already going to get pirated, copied, scraped… Yeah, we didn’t agree on things.
Another group started out drinking and smoking weed in order to pull together enough focus to write. That only devolved into drinking and smoking weed and speaking of nothing else. Oh, except for how bad the world is. They also had big ideas about revolutionising the publishing industry by creating a profit-sharing publisher, but they couldn’t tell the difference between taxes, charity and actual profit sharing. (Could have been all the weed, hey?)
The few good people I’ve managed to find; the writers that were actually committed to writing their stories, who were writing stories with real potential and who were willing to put in the work, just sort of ended up being not that interested when other life things came up that they preferred to do.
I know writing is a lonely job, okay?
I’ve been writing professionally nigh on two decades now. Copywriting, not fiction writing, but the craft is the same. Writing isn’t a job you can do together very easily, because you do need to put in a lot of work yourself before you come to a point where you can collaborate.
I absolutely understand why the writers were striking to protect the writers’ room (among other things). It’s one of the few ways junior writers can get the experience you need to become a better writer. The only reason I’ve become a better writer is by the grace of those more experienced than me teaching me the tricks of the trade.
Their patience has been my saving grace.
And learning how to become a better writer has been based on a lot of reciprocity. There’s an unspoken contract that when you’ve been taught by those that went before you, you turn around and pass it on when you have the chance to do that.
None of us are separate entities, we’re only links in a long chain, and none of us wants the chain to end with us.
Writing is a lonely job, and I’m okay with that.
But even so, I feel like I could use a little company every once in a while. I even understand that no one is ever going to care about your project as much as you are. And that’s okay, too. You should be your own work’s biggest fan.
You should be doing your work because you love it, because you’re following your curiosity, because you feel passionate about bringing it into existence. And it should first and foremost be fulfilling for you to do that work (otherwise it’s just a job, right?).
Like Elizabeth Gilbert said, your creative work should feel like having an affair. Don’t ask it to pay the bills and be productive. Instead, love it with a secret passion and be excited to sneak off any chance you get to do it.
I love feeling this way about my work. And I’d love to share that with some other writers. Just once in a while.
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