Time To Stop

 

Writing is a funny thing. It creeps into our bones without us even being aware of it. When I finished my first fiction manuscript, I dreamed of landing a literary agent. To say I was being premature is an understatement. The novel wasn't very good. Not that it was awful by any means for a first attempt, but not even I would want to read it now. I remember being resentful of all the rejections I received. "They just don't recognize a great talent!"

What kept me going was revenge. I would show 'em. But revenge aside, I loved writing. I loved everything about it. Mostly I loved creating new worlds (not literally new worlds; still earth), worlds and people I didn't yet know, but was eager to discover. I wanted to see what happened to these people. I don't think that much of it was even conscious. Characters went where they went, did what they did, made horrendous mistakes that I needed to help them get out of.

My only strong point was that I could form coherent sentences. That was the one aspect of writing I didn't need to learn. And I didn't mind studying the rest. Stumbling upon wise advice was a smack-me-upside-the-head revelation. Damn! I sure did that part wrong! 

Good writing, in all its components, doesn't come naturally to most of us. For me, I had to learn what not to do more than what to do. My biggest lesson was that an author can't loll their way into a story; they have to hook readers from the start. I was at a disadvantage there, since I never know what the story will be until I get into it. I've never once outlined; couldn't if I tried. What this meant for me was that I almost always had to go back and revise my stories' openings. Truthfully, that's a small problem in the wider scheme of things.

After my revenge novel didn't work out, nor my third, I vowed to stop all together. But there came that bone-seeping again. I couldn't stop. But I changed my tack. Since I was done with submitting to agents, I wrote for myself. And instead of long, boring stories, I tried novellas. No sub-plots! One story, start to finish. All seven of those novellas were fun to write. They didn't sell, but they were great practice, which I didn't even realize at the time.

In all, it took me nine years to become a good fiction writer. Yikes! Slow learner! Had I not fallen in love with the process, I never would have persisted. How many hobbies can a person suck at for nine years and still keep going?  

In hindsight, what tripped me up was coming to view writing as a business, rather than the pastime it actually was. I browsed too many writer's forums, where everyone was in pursuit of the hidden treasure, where everybody compared their stats and detailed their marketing successes. I felt inadequate. I'd maybe sold 3 or 4 random copies of my novellas, and I never even cared until I fooled myself into thinking I should. 

I've always viewed my work pretty objectively. I can name which of my books are good and which are only so-so. I'm a tough grader. 

In the end, what started out as my eighth novella turned into a full-length novel, something I swore I would never attempt to write again. I loved writing it! Those months and months were ceaselessly exciting. Writing it gave me a purpose. And the final product was good! People tell me it's good. Let's put it this way: 99.9% of the people who bothered to read and review it loved it. I would have gotten a swollen head if my number of readers wasn't so paltry.

It became incumbent upon me to do whatever I needed to do to convince more people to read it. And that's where everything went off the rails. With every marketing failure I became more and more desperate. "If people would just read it!"

I know I talk about earnings a lot on this blog, but it was never about the money; not really. Even I know that I would never make more than a pittance off a $2.99 book sale. What it truly was about was validation. A sale meant I wrote something that sounded interesting to people. I wanted (needed?) to be thought of as interesting.

I made a ton of stupid marketing decisions for this novel. Yes, I tried everything there was to try, from writing contests to begging book bloggers and social media users, to ads to giveaways. I even tried sending out newsletters, which was demoralizing. I refused to accept the truth--that hardly anyone wanted what I was selling. Desperation isn't pretty to look at, and I'm pretty sure everyone could see it.

For all of my efforts, in the end I have a total of 75 sales and 32,479 Kindle Unlimited page reads. That's nothing to sneeze at. That's far more than I ever achieved with any of my other books, but then again, I spent far more on this novel than I did on any of my other books.

Even for a masochist, there comes a realization that it's time to stop. And thus, I'm stopping. If this sounds sad, trust me; I'm not sad. I'm relieved. I'm sick to death of talking about this book. 

And if you've been following this blog, you know that I'm also done writing. That decision had absolutely nothing to do with this novel. I simply don't have the desire anymore. I've always joked that my hobbies have an expiration date of ten years, which is true. I love practicing them until I don't. That might be because after ten years I've gone as far as I can with them, and there are no more challenges. This novel accomplished what I needed to accomplish--to prove I could write a good one. I do love writing, or the concept of writing, but starting a new story? I have no more passion for it. 

To be clear, this blog is not stopping. I still have plenty to talk about--as an observer of the publishing world, not as a participant. I have lots of personal experiences to draw from. 

Of all the stupid decisions I've made since I published my novel, quitting is the only sensible one.