Damien and I watched a documentary about Raymond Carver the other day. The documentary itself wasn’t very good, but Raymond Carver said something that’s been slowly building to a boil in my mind ever since. I don’t have the exact quote (we already returned the DVD to the library), but it was something along the lines of how every story he ever wrote was, while he was working on it, his favorite story. The excitement of watching the story become truly good was, I couldn’t help but assume, what helped Carver develop that famed revision ethic that, in my opinion, all would-be writers should (but don’t always) emulate.

It’s finally hit me, just now, what it was about that quote that seemed so significant to me. It’s the fact that I once felt that way, too. Once. But I haven’t felt that way in a while, not since I got the phone call telling me my first book was about to be published.

Even though I have been writing lately, which sometimes feels like an accomplishment in and of itself considering how distracted I’ve been with my thoughts of the little girl who is growing and growing inside me right now, I haven’t really been producing anything particularly worthwhile. Writing and producing something worthwhile, of course, are not always the same thing. While I can say I’ve definitely spent some time in front of the computer for the past year, I don’t really have much to show for that time, just a bunch of hollow drafts and half-assed revisions. Nothing feels like it’s coming together the way it should, and I don’t, really, feel all that excited about any of my current projects.

Nothing that I’m writing now feels important. On top of that, I feel discouraged by the fact that very few people will likely ever read the book I’ve already published. I realize that’s not supposed to be the point, that we should write for ourselves, but it is a difficult realization, when you discover that this thing you’ve been dreaming about for so long—publishing a book!—is so anticlimactic, is of so little consequence in the end.

It’s strange, but actually winning a fiction prize and publishing my first book has made me ever more cynical about my career as a writer. About writing in general, as a serious endeavor. It’s different when you dabble in writing for fun, but when you reach a point where you’re really invested in it, where your writing is one of the most important things in your life, it can be a hard reality check when you publish a book. Once that short-lived excitement about having “made it” passes, you realize that readers don’t know who you are, that most of them will never even hear about your book, and of the ones who do, few will buy it, and even fewer will actually read it. The thrill of the accomplishment wears off fast, and what you’re left with is the realization that you’ve been so very naïve all these years, when you told yourself that publishing a book actually mattered.

And so, I guess, what it comes down to is that I’m having trouble rekindling that flame that was sort of snuffed out by the harsh reality of actually publishing a book. Where once I felt so excited about each new project, now I find myself wondering, sure, but what’s the point? Who cares about this stupid story? Even if I publish it, who cares? The excitement that Raymond Carver spoke of has left me, and I’m not sure whether it will ever come back.

But I did speak last time of how this shift in perspective is a strange sort of relief. It’s depressing sometimes—I feel it as an acute loss—but at the same time, it’s kind of liberating, too. It used to feel essential that I wrote and wrote a lot, that I produced and published, that I pushed myself to be the writer I wanted to believe I was. Suddenly, now, those things don’t seem to matter. So what if I don’t write today? So what if this story ends up going nowhere and I give up on it? It doesn’t matter in any real sort of way.

The things that really matter, I see now, are my baby, my marriage, my ability to extend, in whatever way I can, the few moments of true happiness that ever come my way. Sometimes writing brings me that kind of happiness, but thinking about my baby delights me in a way that no story and no publication ever has. There’s something reassuring about that. It’s reassuring to be reminded that writing isn’t all there is, that whether I publish something or not doesn’t really matter, that there is more to life than ambition and drive. That sometimes, just sitting back and living is enough.

About a year and a half ago, my husband Damien and I decided that, in spite of the fact that we’d always said we never wanted kids, we wanted, eventually, to have a baby. Our change of heart was based on several factors, certainly not the least of which was that we spent the summer visiting family, including our nieces and nephew, and we both felt overcome with how much we loved the little tykes and loved spending time with them. We regretted having lived so far away in Alaska for the past three years, and that we were moving far away from them, still, to Ohio. They had all been so tiny the last time we’d seen them, and who knew how big they’d be before we saw them again.

By the time we got settled in Ohio, I had started to feel like I’d been wrong all those years—I did want to be a mother. Having a little Jack or Paris or Katie of my own would be so worth the financial and emotional costs of childrearing. Damien, at first, wasn’t convinced. I let the issue drop, but he knew that I’d changed my mind and that I hoped that he would one day change his. I think just knowing that I wanted to have a baby, and remembering how exciting it was to watch as our nieces and nephews discovered the world and searched for their places in it, planted a seed in Damien’s mind that, within a few months, grew into baby longing.

So we agreed that we wanted to have a baby; what we couldn’t agree on was when we should do it. Damien had just begun a new master’s program, and I’d only just graduated with my MFA. I was teaching adjunct, Damien, working as a TA. We were making enough money to get by, but I had no insurance, nor could we afford insurance for a new baby. In addition, we had no idea how much raising a baby would cost. How much do diapers cost and how often do you have to buy them? Breast milk is free, but what about after the baby is weaned? How much do you end up spending per month on baby food, on clothes, on other necessities we hadn’t even factored in?

But on the other hand, we were already in our late twenties, and the world of academia is such that it would probably take years and years before one or the other of us could land a decent full time job with benefits. If we decided to wait until we were definitely financially stable, we’d probably be in our late thirties or possibly even forties by then. Aside from the risks of having a baby at a later age like that, we didn’t want to be the age of our child’s friends’ grandparents.

We put the discussion off for a year, and, that summer, after I interviewed for and didn’t get a full time job I’d been up for, it seemed the issue might be put off indefinitely. There was simply no good time to have a baby.

And yet people have babies all the time, people in even worse financial situations than we, and, somehow, they seem to manage just fine.

The following fall, when my birth control ran out, Damien and I had a long talk about the future. I pointed out that if we waited, we would probably end up waiting until it was too late, and that, if we were going to do it at all, now seemed as good a time as any. Damien was hesitant, but I believed we’d qualify for Medicaid, and my current job allowed me to teach online classes—it actually did seem like a pretty good time to start trying. So when my pills ran out, I didn’t go back in to renew the prescription, and about four months later, as easy as that, I was pregnant.

As soon as we found out I was pregnant, we looked up Medicaid and found out we made too much. Since then, thoughts of the baby—our excitement over her impending birth, our equal parts delight and fear about becoming parents, and our absolute dread of how we’re going to afford all these medical bills, which have been slowly building and building these past few months—have pretty much consumed us. Damien’s had to deal with this at the same time as working on his thesis at the same time as trying to figure out what his next step should be, since he’s graduating this June.

It’s been difficult, in other words, to keep up a good schedule of writing. I did somehow manage to spend about an average of one hour per day writing this past month, but that’s after three months of only writing for about a half hour a day (actually, in February, the month we got our first bill from the medical clinic—almost $1,000, just for one visit—I hardly wrote at all the entire month).

To be honest, though, I’m not too upset about it. I don’t want to lose what I’ve spent so many years developing, as a writer, but between the baby and the anticlimax of having my first book come out (by the way, I found out I was a pregnant the same week my first book was published; the two things will forever be linked in my mind), I seem to be looking at writing, the writing world, and my place in it a little differently. This post is already long enough as it is, so I won’t go in, just now, to this change in perspective, except to say that what once seemed absolutely vital, the most important thing in my life, suddenly seems like one of a number of important things. Writing is still on the stovetop, for sure, but, for the first time in, well, the first time in my entire life, I’d say, writing has taken a back burner to a few other things. And, unexpected though it is, this shift in priorities? It’s a strange sort of relief.

I recently read Scott Smith’s first novel, A Simple Plan. I had already read, a few years ago, Smith’s second book, The Ruins, which I consider to be one of the best horror novels I’ve ever read. Smith is one of those interesting writers who doesn’t put books out very often—A Simple Plan came out in 1993, The Ruins, thirteen years later, and those are his only two so far—but when  he does, they are hugely successful. Both of his books have been made into movies (A Simple Plan I saw years ago, when it came out, and loved it. I haven’t seen the movie of The Ruins, although I heard it’s not very good, which is interesting because the screenplay was written by Smith himself).

What interests me most about Smith, though, is how seamlessly he weaves together genre-like plot with believable characters and beautiful writing (although the beautiful writing was less prevalent in A Simple Plan than I remember it being in The Ruins). Both books have very well developed characters, each who behave in the exact way these characters would if the story were real, regardless of the fact that the overall premise of each book is not really the stuff of real life.

It’s kind of amazing, if you really think about it, this ability Smith has to make sure the characters are always doing and saying things that are consistent with who they are, while still keeping the plot fantastically gripping. The problem with most highly plot driven stories, in my opinion, is that they tend to sacrifice believable characters for exciting plot points. The writer has mapped out, before he/she even began in many cases, exactly what should happen in this story. What will keep the reader turning the pages? What’s the most unexpected, electrifying way to keep the story moving? Then, the writer has to force the characters to do and say things that will make that next, pre-determined plot point happen. The result, of course, is that the characters aren’t doing or saying what they would if they were real people who actually found themselves in these bizarre circumstances.

But the alternative tends to require the sacrifice of a really stimulating plot. Well, this character would do this and not that in this situation, so unfortunately, the next plot point is going to be a bit dull.

Don’t get me wrong, I prefer stories that are more character driven. If your characters feel real and I totally buy everything they do and say, I don’t mind, so much, if the plot is fairly uneventful, as long as there is at least the bare bones of a plot somewhere in there (Raymond Carver is the perfect example of this style of writing). I don’t like it, though, when the plot is thrilling but the characters are bland and lifeless. That, to me, is the epitome of bad writing.

Smith, though, is able to have it both ways: his characters are believable and consistent, and yet turn after turn, the plot keeps you on your toes—in both books, the characters are dropping like flies, and there’s a lot of psychological suspense and unexpected plot twists. Yet at no point does a character do or say something that doesn’t ring true to who that person is.

Here’s my theory about what Smith does: I think he comes up with a wild premise (three men discover a crashed airplane with a dead body and millions of dollars inside; they decide not to report the plane and keep the money for themselves. Or a group of college kids on spring break in Mexico accidentally stumble into some ancient ruins; they become trapped there, and quickly discover that the ruins are home to a man-eating plant), and I think Smith knows how it’s all going to end, too, but beyond that, I believe that he has no idea what’s going to happen in between. How will these three men reach this conclusion? How will these kids escape or not escape (I won’t tell you which one in case you haven’t read it) these ruins? I believe that Smith himself doesn’t know when he starts writing; he just gets the characters to the starting point and then lets them do what they naturally would from that point forward.

If my theory is true, then why do Smith’s plots end up so compelling? That’s pretty much the way literary fiction writers go about writing, isn’t it? Probably these books’ success is largely based on the fact that Smith is just a good writer, plain and simple, but part of it, I think, comes from the way he’s going about it. His premises are bizarre and genre-esque, and his characters, very well drawn out. No matter what choices these characters make in these crazy situations, their choices are bound to lead to more interesting plot points, which will lead to more interesting choices. He doesn’t need to sit down and figure out the plot beforehand; a good plot is inevitable based on the way he set things up.

I don’t know, of course, if this is really what Smith is doing, but I really do think it is. It’s hard for me to imagine these characters remaining so true to themselves if Smith had planned the plot out in advance, and it’s hard for me to imagine the plot remaining so compelling if he hadn’t started with a high-concept premise and very strong characters. I think he’s just found the perfect balance between plot and characters, and ultimately, I would describe his stories as character driven, even though the plots are also very strong. Reading Smith’s work is enjoyable as a reader and inspirational as a writer. I can’t help but pick apart what I think he’s doing and learn from it in the hopes of improving my own work.

Success as a creative writer, like most (or perhaps all) artistic endeavors, requires many things: a small amount of inspiration; a small amount of talent; a large amount of determination (bred, perhaps, of naiveté and self-confidence); a large amount of plain, old fashioned, roll-your-sleeves-up-and-get-dirty hard work; and, more important than anything else, a very, very, very large amount of luck. And the truth is, while I wouldn’t urge anyone who didn’t possess all the first four qualities to get their hopes up, that last one is really the make-or-break you one, and you can, in fact, reach a ridiculously high level of success with luck alone (but you’d have to be really, really lucky . . .).

This, of course, is disheartening for those of us who don’t see ourselves as particularly lucky people. It’s frustrating to think that I can get inspired with a great idea, I can combine talent and hard work to get the idea down, and I can be determined, can plow through rejections and keep at it and keep at it, and still end up nowhere if I don’t happen to get lucky somewhere along the way. Can you imagine if other things in life were like this?

What if, for example, you were invited to a friend’s house, but in giving you directions to her house, she warned you that even if you follow all of these directions exactly, her house is under a Brigadoon style curse and is only visible to outsiders at random times; you’ll have to just hope that when you arrive, you’ll be able to see it and can come in. Let’s assume, also, that her house is very far away. To make the trip at all will entail several days on the road. Would you make the trip anyway?

Your answer to that question surely relies on your answer to another question: how badly do you want to see your friend? Like with writing, your answer to that question will at least decide whether or not you even stand a chance of making it. If she’s just an acquaintance, you probably won’t care to make the trip. If she, however, is someone very important to you, you might be willing to risk it, even if your chances of actually seeing her at the end are slim. At least there is a chance, and if you didn’t go at all, there wouldn’t be.

Perhaps the key difference between this analogy and writing is that many would-be writers don’t realize how much luck has to go into their success, so it’s a little bit like if your friend forgot to mention to you the curse. Many would-be writers, actually, believe that it all comes down to talent. I’m sorry, but there are far more writers with talent in this world than there are writers who will ever reach any notable level of success. Writers with talent are everywhere you look. Inspired writers are, too. Writers with enough determination (which is linked to wanting it bad enough) and writers who are willing to put the work in are less abundant, and the writers who have all of those qualities and will also get lucky are even scarcer.

For those of us who fully understand this and have, for whatever reason, chosen to stick to it, anyway, there is a glimmer of light at the end of it all, although to see it, you might have to adjust your glasses (read: expectations) a bit. If you are in this for fame, fortune, and validation, you might be heading down a long, dark road, at the end of which you may or may not be rewarded for your efforts. If you’re in it, though, because you love writing, because (to extend the previous metaphor to the breaking point) you’ve decided that it’s okay if you don’t get to see your friend—you’d like to get out and see a bit more of the world, and the journey will be your reward—then you might find that it was all worth it in the end, even if when you arrive, your friend’s house is nowhere to be found.

It’s baseball season again, a fact which really wouldn’t affect my life in any way except that I’m married to someone for whom baseball makes the world go ‘round. Even though in general, I still really don’t care about baseball (or any sport, to be honest, although sometimes certain events at the Olympics can be kind of exciting), I do like that baseball makes my husband so happy—almost giddy, sometimes—and when he really gets caught up in the heat of it, he tends to share with me all kinds of anecdotes about the game and its players, which I enjoy hearing.

He told me a story this morning that I think is the perfect metaphor for what it takes to be a writer (or to be good at any kind of artistic or sporty endeavor). It came up because we were talking about him playing catch with a friend of his; it’s an activity he loves to do, but it always leaves his body sore. “I’m no pro,” he said. “I can’t do anything athletic without getting sore.” But then we realized that probably pro players get sore too; they just power through it. They do it anyway because they love the game so much (I’m sure the fact that they make tons of money off of doing it doesn’t hurt their motivation, either).

Then he told me the story of Andre Dawson, a professional baseball player who had to have his trainers break his scar tissue before every game so that he could play. He said Dawson would excuse himself into a private room and close the door, but the other players still saw the tears streaming down his cheeks when he would come back out again. Breaking that tissue before every game must have caused incredible pain, but he had to do it if he wanted to be flexible enough to play. 

I’m sure if you want to go pro, some genetic issues have to line up just right, but I imagine there are a lot of people who genetically have what it takes to play. The real difference, I think, between the people who go pro and the people who play catch once or twice a week with a friend comes down to much more than just genetics. Part of it, obviously, is that you have to want to be a baseball player to begin with (my husband, and many others like him, don’t really want that—they want to watch and sometimes throw the ball around with friends, but they don’t really want it to be their careers). But even wanting to play is not enough; you have to want it bad. You have to want it so bad you’re willing to do it even when it hurts. You have to want it so bad you give up other things you’d rather be doing because you have to practice. You have to want it so bad that you intentionally inflict pain on yourself if it means you’ll be able to play.

Okay, maybe writing doesn’t require physical pain to get good. We writers don’t have to break our fingers every morning in order to be able to type fast enough or anything like that. But we do have to sacrifice. We do have to write even when we don’t feel like it, or even when there is something else going on that we feel like doing instead. We have to pick apart our own abilities, recognize our flaws and learn to overcome them. We have to understand that being sufficiently intelligent and wanting to be a writer are not enough. What it really takes is that extra effort, that drive to power through the pain, that will to get up an hour earlier than you have to in order to make sure you get at least an hour of writing time in every single day.

One of my husband’s peers in his MA program out here—a lit student, not creative writing—once told us that he used to want to be a writer, but then he realized that being a real writer took more than just writing a first draft of a story when he felt inspired. If he really wanted to be a writer, he would have to dedicate his life to it; he would have to push himself hard at it and make real sacrifices. So he decided not to pursue it. “I like the idea of being a writer,” he said, “but I don’t actually want to do the things it would take to be a writer, so I think I’ll stick to lit.” Not many would-be writers are that cool, I have to tell you. Not many hobbyists really understand that they are not putting in the same effort as the writers who are having consistent publication success.

This all doesn’t mean that people who don’t have that drive can’t dabble. There’s nothing wrong with being a now-and-then sort of writer, a hobbyist, and in fact, I think it’s a healthy way to get in touch with your creative side and explore the world around you, and it can be very rewarding. I think everybody who wants to write should do it, even if nobody but they themselves will ever read what they’ve written. But if you really want a shot at the big game, or even just consistent success in the minor leagues (since after all, let’s be honest, the big game takes more than genetics and wanting it bad enough; the big game takes a heavy dose of pure, unadulterated luck), I think you need to be pushing yourself harder than just writing when you feel like it or when you feel inspired.

In a recent Salon.com article, Laura Miller discusses the increasing importance of self-promotion for writers. Miller compares the current state of the literary world to times gone by, when authors like J.D. Salinger and Harper Lee (just to name a few of Miller’s examples) were able to have their writerly cake and eat it too, being both reclusive and successful at once. In the contemporary literary market, Miller points out, “someone like [Harper] Lee might as well not bother; however good her book is, it won't find an audience unless she's willing and able to make hawking it at least a part-time job.”

This is so true. So depressing and yet so true. As someone who has recently published my own first book, I have to admit that I’m a bit discouraged by how much of a published writer’s job is just getting out there and trying to sell his or her book. I have to admit that, while I’m still excited about having a book published, I’ve also found the entire experience anti-climactic in that writing the book, it seems, was just one small step in the being a published writer process. Now that the book is out there, I have to become a salesman, which is something I’m not particularly good at, nor is it something that I really want to do. I hate selling. I’m like Lloyd Dobler (from Say Anything) in that way: “I don’t want to buy anything, sell anything, or process anything as a career.”  

But unfortunately, it turns out that a good deal of a writer’s job is spent in PR and sales. I’m introverted and socially awkward—that’s why I got to be so good at writing to begin with. Instead of spending time outside, interacting with other kids my age, I stayed inside and wrote. At the time, of course, I wasn’t thinking about one day trying to publish the things I wrote, but if I had been, it surely wouldn’t have occurred to me that if I did publish them, I would have to then get out there and try to make those other kids, who I was afraid of to begin with and didn’t know how to talk to, like me enough to want to buy my book.

And what I find the most discouraging is not even that I have to get out there and push my wares, but the fact that even if I do, my book is still unlikely to reach a very wide audience. I can set up readings and book signings galore, but I’ll be lucky if very many people show up, never having heard of me, and even luckier if I actually sell more than a copy or two per event. It feels, sometimes, fairly futile. And all of the time and energy I put into those events take away, as Miller says, from the time I could spend writing.

So yes, I think the true state of the publishing world is a bit depressing. It’s depressing for the writers who will never reach much of an audience because they don’t know how to sell themselves, and it’s depressing for readers, who end up only hearing about a small fraction of the great stuff out there, and who, even then, are most likely to only hear about the writers who A) Spend more time marketing themselves than writing, and as a result are not great writers, or B) Have been deemed marketable enough by the gods that be at a major publishing house that the publisher is willing to spend time and money on promoting their book(s). While certainly the latter group includes some good writers, both groups, I’m afraid, include a lot of hacks and otherwise lousy writers. In other words, I don’t think it actually is that far-fetched to suggest that most of the really good writers aren’t even on the radars of most readers.

This all sounds like a rant, perhaps, or at least a whole lot of complaining. I don’t mean to complain. I’m a cynic, certainly, but I don’t see myself as a pessimist. I guess to some extent I think it’s interesting, as both a reader and writer, to be aware of how these things really work. I don’t know that there’s a solution to the problem. I suppose as readers, we have to be diligent about seeking out new work, and as writers, we have to be willing to put the time and effort in to selling a book or two here, a book or two there. But even then, there’s going to be a whole lot of great writers that I’ll never hear of as a reader, and there’s going to be a whole lot of potential readers that I’ll never reach as a writer. And I suppose that’s just the way it goes.

My husband, Damien, recently read The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, which I had read for my book club last summer and spent, no doubt, more time than I ought to have complaining about its many faults to Damien after I read it. It’s a very poorly crafted book, to say the least, and since it’s the only Dan Brown book I’ve ever read (and probably ever will read), I find it’s mere existence kind of grating since there are so many good writers out there who aren’t getting the attention that writers like Dan Brown receive.

Damien, though, is an unapologetic Dan Brown fan, so I was anxious to hear his thoughts on The Lost Symbol. Would he think it was a good book, I wondered? Were what I was calling its weaknesses really just subjective things that I personally didn’t like while another well educated writer/reader could see those things as strengths? Or was, perhaps, this book not a good example of Brown’s abilities? Damien has read most of Brown’s books, and while he’s always the first to admit that Brown seems to have some sort of template that he just plugs names, locations, and other details into for each new book, Damien also firmly believes that they are enjoyable books and worth reading because of their entertainment value.

It was interesting watching Damien make his way through The Lost Symbol. He did notice many of the same lousy writing issues that I had, and joked around with me about the crappy sentence level stuff, or the ridiculously amateurish repetition—characters in the book are constantly doing “a double take,” or their “gaze” finds something, and they “chuckle” a lot. Damien also felt like the plot was predictable and kept stopping to tell me, “I hope I’m wrong, but I think X is going to happen, and if X happens, I’m going to be very disappointed with Dan Brown.” Indeed, in almost every case, X did happen, and Damien was accordingly disappointed.

When Damien finished the book, I asked him what he thought overall. He of course first had to point out how long winded the ending was, and how a couple hundred pages should probably have been cut from the entire book (both points which I agree with), but then he said something that kind of surprised me—I honestly think it’s kind of a brilliant observation. He said, “There’s a difference between thinking a book is good and liking a book. The Lost Symbol,” he admitted, “is not a good book. But I liked it anyway.”

This point really resonated with me in part because while Damien was reading The Lost Symbol, I read a couple of small press novels I’d picked up at AWP. Both books had been good, in that they were well written and carefully crafted, and they explored interesting ideas in subtle and new ways. Yet, I have to admit, I didn’t like them. I found them interesting, and I felt like I gained something as a writer from having read them and analyzed the techniques they were using, but I didn’t enjoy them as a reader. I didn’t get sucked into the plots. I didn’t really care about the characters or feel invested in what might happen to them. So when Damien pointed out that there’s a difference between liking a book and thinking it’s a good book, I had to agree.

This is an interesting realization as a writer. I suppose I would have assumed that these two things should go hand-in-hand—and certainly, sometimes they do, but not always. I think for many readers, maybe even most, what makes a book pleasurable to read is a very different set of things than what makes it a worthwhile piece of literature. It’s the same, I think, for most types of art. What makes a painting artistically worthwhile is a different set of criteria than what makes the average Joe want to hang a print of it on his or her wall—consider how commercially successful Thomas Kincade is, in spite of the fact that educated artsie types think he’s a hack. Thomas Kincade probably is a hack, but his paintings are still pretty, don’t you think? Dan Brown is a hack, too, but man, wasn’t that chapter that takes place in the pitch black pod intense?

I can’t picture anybody in their right mind (to be fair, I should say I can’t picture anybody who is very well educated about literature) considering Dan Brown a “good” writer, but I can and do understand people “liking” him. Damien’s right, the two attitudes are not the same, and even snooty types like me, who cringed my way through most of The Lost Symbol, can still recognize the value in a good mystery, a little adventure, just something to distract you from the real world for a while.