A few months ago, one of my heroes Seth Godin blogged about picking yourself which is a message I strongly believe in. This is a guest post from Jacqui McGhee is Editorial Director of Giglets, ebooks for children and it has a similar message.
You’re a writer and that you own an overactive imagination.
You have perhaps added an unusual literary hero to that mix and then allowed yourself to indulge in some weird daydreams.
I myself sometimes wonder if I could have gone without shoes and kept on writing just as Samuel Johnson did. I doubt it, but I still like to imagine myself in dark eighteenth-century Britain sacrificing my toes to literary achievement.
We all dream of distant places and different times. We assure ourselves that were we in that situation; we would overcome adversity to become the great writers our heroes became.
What about the challenges we face now?
Well those are a different kettle of fish.
You don’t have a time-machine and you can’t go back but every time you read a favourite classic, you recognise what your heroes did right. Learn from them. Learn how to tell a good story, create memorable characters and colourful dialogue. Use it to create something new of your own.
As a writer nowadays, you’ve almost inevitably been carrying around another daydream since you first picked up a pencil and scribbled on a wall. This normally involves your brilliant novel being tripped over by a publisher who loves it, jumping straight from discovery to bestselling, applause and you sit pretty for the rest of your days.
That’s very pleasant but…
Where’s the story, the challenge and the adversity?
If that dream came true you wouldn’t be anyone’s hero, you’d just be lucky. It’s a good thing then that it’s not likely to come true. You don’t have to give up all the interesting bits just because we live in a different time. You can be a hero too.
In the opening to Bleak House, Dickens imagines dinosaurs waddling about London in the mud. Well, the mud has gone but the dinosaurs are there, only they seem to have dropped their scales and become publishing houses. Dinosaurs always need to know where their next meal is coming from. They’ll take no risks on unproven writers whilst they’re unsure of their own survival on a changing planet. There’s your challenge.
We’re here in the beginning; we have a chance to do something new, innovative and brave.
We can run rings around the dinosaurs. We can be the new species of writer that drops the scales, grows feathers and flies forward to meet the future of publishing. So many writers look back wistfully at the Jurassic; the past seems simpler, albeit rose-tinted and a little foggy. That means we get a head start.
Take what you’ve learned from your heroes and use it to forge a new path to publication. More paths are springing up all the time; that is the nature of evolution. You can try one and it might be wrong but you’ve lost nothing more than if you had stayed still. If you try one and it’s right then you could become the hero.
Opportunity knocks. Be brave. Now is the time.
Jacqui McGhee is Editorial Director of Giglets, ebooks for children.
Find Giglets on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Giglets
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Top image: Flickr CC Thomas Hawk
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I don’t daydream a lot but I totally agree with what you said about having a chance to something innovative and bold.
Hi Halley, thanks for that
I really believe that writers and publishers have so many opportunities at the moment that it’s hard to know which way to turn. My mother always told me; ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.’ A mix of opportunity, creativity and determination will help all of us get to where we want to be.
Very true words; the publishing industry is faced with many challenges as well as opportunities. But hey, it’s not about technology, writing remains a creative process, and technology only changes the delivery to the reader. After all, when the monks and other book copiers in the middle ages were superseded by the Gutenberg printing press, writing became more creative. With publishing going electronic, it’s all the more exciting for the creative writers of the present and the future.
I agree Karsetn – the technology allows us to be more creative. I also believe the creative process benefits from getting info out there – if it remains in us, it becomes a block – if we let it out (publish it sometimes), it enables space for the next creative project. Marvellous!
Joanna would certainly know all about that
Thank-you Jacqui for these very inspiring words. I love the opportunities that new technology has opened up to the underdogs. My Kindle is full of brilliant work by authors that I may never have come across before.
And I could not agree more, we all have daydreams of overnight success, but how can we fully appreciate the sense of accomplishment without going through all the trials and tribulations.
Thanks Karen! That’s just what I mean; the trials and tribulations are what make a thing worth doing. Winning the lottery might be nice but no one will ever ask you about the journey. In writing your novel, building your business or working towards your goals, you’re living the only story that you can ever really own and the more interesting it is, the better.
True, all true. The market is so different now compared to what it was just several years back, and it’s up to the writers to brave the adventure that publishing is.
Well put Hiroko
thanks.
Jacqui,
This sentence really struck me hard (almost like a slap): “If that dream came true you wouldn’t be anyone’s hero, you’d just be lucky.”
I was just dealt a major blow regarding a huge project and had the urge to go set my laptop on fire and never write again. (Which would be lame. I work as a writer.) But this article helped me keep it in perspective. So, a major blow was dealt. It’ll just make for a nice bit of drama when I tell my grandchildren of how my novelist career began, right?
My writing hero is Steven Pressfield, who is very honest and raw in sharing his obstacles, so maybe I should remember that, hey, I’m going to have a lot of these, too.
Thanks for the reminder, Jacqui.
Definitely
I’ve had that feeling; the one where you think ‘It shouldn’t be this hard!’ Every writer has found themselves thinking about arson (or something equally destructive) and wanting to quit but we just can’t. Believe me, if you tried to stop you wouldn’t manage; creativity will come out in the end.
Honestly, the fact that Samuel Johnson once had no shoes really makes a difference to how I pull it together
“You’re a writer and that you own an overactive imagination.” – This is a powerful statement. This is why we’re writers, we wouldn’t know what to do otherwise. I love the future of publishing because the stage to present that imagination is now limitless. It doesn’t take the challenge of finding our audience away but I think it leaves more breathing room to let our overactive imaginations have free reign. We can concentrate more on really putting out the works that are different, and unique, and let our readers decide if we get to be mentioned in the same breath as the classics. Until then, we remain our own heroes (well said). A good start I think.
Thanks Crystal
I like to think that the gatekeepers are becoming less important, in that technology is giving us such direct access to our audience. I really believe that now is the time to let your imagination out and push your ideas as far as they’ll go; for yourself and for all of those creative people in different times and places who never had the chance to do just that 
Happy writing
Jacqui,
An interesting and inspiring article. For someone who over recent months has felt totally alienated from the “Jurassic’s” this article really bring it home to me that the modernisation of this, somewhat, institutionalised market place can only be to the benefit to you and I!
As Karsten and Joanna, pointed out earlier technology allows for an extension of the creative process and this is exciting, in fact it is exhilarating! Now is the time for creativity, determination, individualism and action packed adventure.
Well done! Venture, adventure!
Hi George, I can’t say it better than that
Venture, adventure!
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