I Can't Publish... So I Shouldn't Write

When I talk to authors my age (or older), I often get the idea that they think there's no point in writing if they're never going to do anything with the writing. Maybe they won't say it outright, but if you're at all like me, sometimes the thought ends up something like, "Why am I wasting my time writing this? I'm never going to publish it, so it won't ever make any money. Shouldn't I be doing something profitable with my time?"

1) Writing Just For Fun

I don't really know if other authors (published or not) struggle with this like I do, but I'm pretty sure there's a good amount of us out there. Especially after publishing my first book, I've been writing less fanfiction, short stories, and other just-for-fun things. Nagging in the back of my brain is the thought, You can't ever publish fanfiction. You can't publish just three pages. Shouldn't you be working on one of the works you might be able to put out into the world someday?

Of course, the answer is, no! You should absolutely be writing whatever it comes into your brain to write. Will I ever make money off of the one-page short story I wrote based on the song Abstract (Psychopomp) by Hozier? No. Did it make me a better writer to incorporate references to the song and practice writing the raw emotion I wanted readers to feel? Absolutely. Is it legal for me to make money off of fanfiction? Nope. But does it help me get better at writing different character perspectives than I usually do, give my friends something to read, and exercise my creativity? Absolutely!

Even if you don't think it'll make you a better writer, there is nothing at all the matter with writing something for fun. Kids play, and they get to know themselves and the world around them better. Writers should play, too, and even if there isn't an immediate point, it's helping you know your writing better! If all the writing you do is under pressure with a business-like mindset, it'll burn you out pretty fast. All of a sudden, your passion isn't fun anymore. You don't want to do it at all. If writing becomes all deadlines and word counts, you don't feel like an author anymore. You just feel like a college English student. "If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life" doesn't work if you don't let yourself have fun with it. (This isn't to say you should only write when it's easy. It's to say you shouldn't only write when it's hard.)

2) Struggling To Write What You Want To

Maybe you're on a different end of this spectrum. You're writing your book, you want to get it finished and out the door, but you just keep writing nonsense plot points and pointless scenes. You start to think maybe you should give up and stop trying - it's never going to get good enough to publish, so what's the point? I'm in this boat right now, too.

But no matter what you think, any writing makes you a better writer. Bad writing teaches you what not to do. If it's too bad to be edited, so what? You learned. Scrap it and write the scene again. Sad writing teaches you what makes readers feel the emotion you want to convey. It ends up too sad to match the tone of your book? Awesome, now you get to learn to tune it down. Lighthearted writing helps you get to know your characters better and how they act when they aren't under pressure. It doesn't sound right in your plot flow? Okay, move it to a different document (I don't delete any writing). You know your characters better now. You've discovered 100 ways not to make a lightbulb. Now go try again.

3) The Root of the Problem

Finally, let's look down at where this problem sprouts. Maybe you feel like you shouldn't bother writing because you won't be able to publish (whether because of the writing or anything else). Maybe you feel like you should give up on writing altogether because it isn't behaving how you want it to. What's the real problem at the base of all these thoughts and worries? Is it the fear that your writing isn't good compared to others? Is it the thought that no one cares what you have to say? Is it that little voice in your head saying, "This sounds stupid, just like everything else you write. Just throw it out."

All of these things (and whatever else comes to your mind) are definitely contributing factors to the thought that you shouldn't write because you can't publish. But I don't think they're really the root cause. I think the root of this problem is one of the most dangerous Writer Fears: I'm not a real writer if I don't publish/if I don't get famous.

No! No, no, no, no, no.

Don't get me wrong, I battle with this as much as the next writer. The Otherfolk's lifetime sales total to maybe 100 copies if you squint. Is that good? Yes! Am I famous? Am I set up to make a living off the 8 dollars in book money I got this month? Not at all.

Am I a real writer?

Yes!

No matter how bad you think your writing is, no matter how long it's been since you wrote, no matter if your story is 100 words or 100,000 - you are a real writer. A real, living, breathing, creative, dreaming, writing writer. You don't have to be in the Louvre to be an artist, you don't have to own a restaurant to cook, you don't have to release and produce music to be a musician, and you do not have to publish to be a writer.

This post is the first in an upcoming series I'm planning to write: "I Can't Publish a Book Because." From money to publicity to skill, I'll be telling off one fear at a time so you know that you can publish a book. It doesn't matter what's in your way, you can do it.

But you don't have to.

You don't even have to want to.

You can write fanfiction and one-page stories and scenes in the margins of your Biology notes and be a writer. You can want to be the next J.K. Rowling and be a writer. You can be any of the hundreds of things in between and be a writer. So what are you waiting for? Forget publishing. Forget standards. Go write whatever's been buzzing in your head - and have fun!