However Many Readers Can't Be Wrong
You don't need a bigger audience than any other writer—just embrace the idea that the audience you DO have is on to something.
I mentioned in my last newsletter that I’m teaming up with Belt Publishing to release Our Endless and Proper Work, which pulls together and expands upon some of the thinking I’ve been doing here over the last two and a half years about, as our subtitle puts it, “starting and sticking to your writing practice. Last week, I heard from Anne Trubek, the publisher at Belt: the book is now available for pre-order, and you can have a look at the cover, which I immediately appropriated to create a banner for when I send out emails. (As we get closer to publication next spring, I’m sure the ebook version will become available as well!)
What if, instead of being motivated by proving people who doubted you wrong, you shifted to trying to prove people who believed in you right?
That’s the question Ernest Wilkins asked earlier this week in his Office Hours newsletter. I’ve been dwelling on it while processing my thoughts after my own most recent message to you about writing with anger, not from it; in particular, I’ve been sitting with Wilkins’ reflection that he’s not really in competition with anybody else who’s running their newsletter through Substack to see who can grab the biggest audience, or get on a list of superstar newsletter writers, or rake in the most money.
I went through a similar thought process about thirteen or fourteen years ago, when blogs were the Next Big Thing the way newsletters are right now, and I always used to say to people, “Well, if I wanted to get rich blogging, I wouldn’t have chosen to write about books and writers, I’d have chosen something really popular like politics.” It was said with a bit of a laugh in my voice, and of course I actually did love writing about books and writers, but I’ll be honest: there was still an undercurrent of resentment there, a feeling that I should be reaping bigger rewards than I was.
Eventually, after years of therapy, I realized it was true: I should have been reaping bigger rewards, but that was on me for not working as smart as I could have, and for not pushing myself hard enough. I believed in the work that I was doing, and I took pride in what I was able to accomplish, sometimes under extremely challenging conditions. And yet, for all that I would be among the first to tell aspiring writers that “you can’t pay your bills with prestige or reputation,” I was still scraping by, and frankly if it weren’t for my wife’s generous and tolerant spirit I would by necessity have taken the first job that came along and felt truly miserable instead of just frustratingly inert.
That situation didn’t change overnight. There was a moment where I had what you might call an epiphany, but even after that it took a great deal of contemplation, of wrestling with the belief that I had something of value that I could share with, well, with you, then figuring out how to make that happen and creating this newsletter. Even then, I still had to find my groove… and though I think things have been on a generally upward trend here over the last two and a half years, pushing myself forward means accepting that sometimes I’m going to fall down. I just need to be prepared to pick myself back up again—so I can deliver this newsletter to you, and for you, because you’ve seen something here worthy of your consideration, and that’s worth nurturing.
As Wilkins says, I’m choosing to believe that all of you who read and appreciate this newsletter are on to something, and we’ll see where that belief takes us. That’s only half of it, though, because, like him, I want you to know about the writers I believe in, the ones I think are doing something worth talking about. Because… you know, let’s not frame it as “needing to hear praise,” because that makes it sound kind of, well, needy. Maybe “recognition” doesn’t get us far enough away from that, either. How about “acknowledgment,” then? Yes, that’s got potential: let’s say that it’s good sometimes to get a signal that you’re not simply writing into the void, that somebody else sees what you’re doing and would like to see you keep doing it, that the things you’re sharing through your writing are meaningful to them, too.
So I’m always on the lookout for other newsletters about the writing life, or any sort of creative life really, and I recently learned about Lonely Victories, which is written by Hurley Winkler. She spoke with one of her teachers, essayist Chelsea Hodson, about partnering with another writer and holding each other accountable to keep writing: “All you need is one reliable person that wants to work at a similar rate that you do,” Hodson told Winkler. “Ideally, you admire this person in some way and don't want to let them down.”
So it can be as simple as sending that person a message at the end of the day, letting them know how much you were able to accomplish and encouraging them when they tell you what they’ve done. Or, if you’re up for it, that person can be reading your work and offering constructive feedback or, perhaps, helping you brainstorm. Hodson also talks about Finish What You Start, “a program that [pairs] personal weekly coaching with a weekly craft newsletter,” which she’s offered in the past and will apparently be offering again soon.
Now I took notice of that, because in some ways it resonated with the consulting I’ve been doing with writers, although I tend to work with writers who’ve already got one draft and want some guidelines on how to approach the next draft—how to refine a story they’ve already thought out and set down to some degree. But when Hodson says, “I can help people look at their project with fresh eyes and a realistic approach to finishing it,” I find myself nodding. I don’t know what I’m going to do with that resonating idea, if anything, but it’s food for thought.
Anyway, it looks like Hurley Winkler’s off to a good start, and you may want to keep an eye on Lonely Victories, just as I’ll be doing.
(Postscript: Some of you may be thinking, “Ron, it does matter how big an audience you have, how big a profile you have, because if those aren’t big enough, and you don’t sell enough books, then you’re not making publishers enough money to keep publishing you, and eventually you won’t have much of an audience at all.” That’s absolutely right… if your primary interest in writing is to sell books and make money—and even if it isn’t your primary interest, it certainly comes into play if you’re thinking about working with commercial publishers at all. We do think about that sometimes in this newsletter. This, however, is not one of those times.)