So am I a writer? (Part Two – the question of success)

Back in August 2011, I asked the question, ‘So am I a writer?’ here. That was when nobody – nobody at all – was reading my blog. I had scrawled the first (catastrophically rough as it now turns out) 45,000 words of my first ever first draft and written 3 unremarkable short stories, one of which has, astonishingly, been published.

Today, I have produced the completed manuscript of my first novel – that’s 97,000 words give or take – and I have the firm intention to get it out there one way or another.

In the intervening months whilst writing, editing and doggedly refining Singled Out, I’ve continued to earn my living as a business copywriter and marketer. I deliver blog posts for my clients (for which I am paid); I deliver short promotional vignettes for my clients (for which I am paid); and I deliver a slew of output around sales propositions, products, thought leadership and product/service promotion (for which… yes… you got it). So I will, thank you very much, define myself, however cautiously, as ‘a writer’. I write, therefore I am… a writer.

Moving on from this, today, a fellow blogger Eli Glasman at his fascinating blog here, gave me pause for thought on defining success or failure as a writer. It gave me cause to reflect on whether I am – or ever will be – a successful writer.

Here were my thoughts on the matter, commenting on Eli’s blog:

What makes you or I a successful writer? Is it enough simply to write until something – anything – is complete? Must one produce multiple stories, or a novel, or more than one novel? Is it enough that your friends and family love what you write? Is it sufficient to self-publish? Or to be published by an independent? Or do you need the credibility of a mainstream publisher? Do you need sales in the several thousands to consider yourself successful? Do you need an occasional royalty cheque, payment for the odd short story? Is it enough to earn something – anything – from your writing? Or a proportion of your income – one-third, half perhaps? Do you need to be able to live on your writing income? Do you need to be an in-demand speaker at literary events? Would you have to have a place on the bestseller lists? Or a prize – Booker, Costa perhaps? Where does it end?

If you’re one of my writerly blog followers, have you ever considered what would make you classify yourself as a successful writer? It’s a wholly subjective question. And the inevitable follow-on question is this: If one isn’t – perhaps by one’s own definition – successful, does that mean one is an unsuccessful or even, heaven forfend, a failed writer?

I don’t believe so. I might be successful on one level as my freelance work, which is largely writing, supports me. On another level – in the field of fiction – I can’t own the word successful… YET.

I’m going to brand that perspective on the matter ‘success-in-waiting’.

Bookshop Bliss

I passed an absorbing couple of hours yesterday mooching round Waterstones in Piccadilly, in the heart of London.

Apparently now Europe’s biggest bookshop, Waterstones Piccadilly is a paradise for the reader. Its five floors are an abundance of every kind of book from any genre you care to think of, categorised both systematically and creatively, and topped and tailed with comfy areas to kick-back with a drink and a bite to eat.

I headed straight for Fiction on the first floor. Bypassing the helpful shopping baskets (I didn’t see them) I was soon loaded with armfuls of paperbacks. I’m an avid audiobooker, but if I’ve enjoyed listening to a book, I need to own the paper too (I blogged about this a while back, here). Consequently, I keep a running list of books I need to buy, simply so I can go back through them and enjoy them… differently, and of course, possess them, in real leaf-through-the-pages format, as nature and the publishing world intended.

So I picked up three from my listened-and-enjoyed list:

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach – an eclectic group of oldies retire to India
A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth – dark but comic, about a deliciously weird, damaged girl
Smut by Alan Bennett – two unseemly short stories in Bennett’s inimitable style (narrated for audio by the author himself)

But it didn’t end there. With the able and enthusiastic assistance of the… um… assistants, I tracked down another five from my must-read list.

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell
The Red House by Mark Haddon
May We Be Forgiven by A M Homes
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Yes, I know I’m arriving at one or two of these a little late in the day, but there’s just so much reading one woman can do. Especially when the thing she most wants to do with her spare time is… write.

I read all over the genre geography. I enjoy the kind of books which fall into what’s variously called lit-lite (yuk!), accessible literary, crossover or even, I saw the other day, ‘Richard & Judy’. I particularly enjoy edgier psychological suspense – that’s what I’m writing, after all. I’m not into romance, historical or sci-fi, but I meander around the fringes of crime/police procedural, thrillers, chick-lit and full-blown literary as the mood takes me.

I get leads from Goodreads and I buy loads from Amazon as it’s convenient – who can argue with that? But an afternoon in a bookshop is an indulgence and I loved every minute of it, especially being so warmly and professionally served by people who really, properly know their books.

Grammar purists like me bemoan the demise of that apparently outdated possessive apostrophe, flushed away from Waterstones’ (ha!) branding as of last year, for reasons of… practicality. But given the pleasure quotient of a meander around their floors, it seems churlish to dwell.

I had lunch with a friend, took my time over a coffee and dreamed. I’ll be back again, to shop. But just maybe, one day, I’ll be back there to do a reading and a bit of meet-the-author. How’s that for a star to shoot for?

So am I a writer?

I’ve loved writing and the written word ever since my school days. I used to relish the challenge of essays and lengthy exam responses. Over the years I’ve honed my skills on a slew of erotic vignettes (they spiced-up a diverting if unconventional relationship), more letters of complaint and pleas for better service than I could ever recall (I am an acerbic and uncompromising Angry of Tunbridge Wells) and a couple of lengthy and impassioned diatribes (hours wasted deconstructing failed relationships).

Today my paid-for work includes writing sales proposals and every type of business communication. If it needs words, I can rise to it. Space issues or word counts? No problem. Formal or cheery? Technical or salesy? Humorous, ironic or earnest? Whatever you want. I find it absorbing to develop documents in different styles which address all sorts of audiences. Absorbing enough, but if I’m honest, it doesn’t exactly excite me.

I’ve lately become intrigued by the idea of writing stories. I want to find out if I can evolve my commercial writing abilities to craft entertaining, saleable fiction. I began by writing three short stories and I submitted one to a magazine competition. It won first prize and with the cheque for £200 came the first, very small sign, that this story-writing idea might not be a totally absurd notion.

So I pressed on, and now I’m around 45,000 words into what I’ve been calling my writing project. It’s very much a work-in-progress – a learning-in-progress. If it were a marathon, this would still be the first fresh-faced mile or two; to call it my novel still sounds far too agonisingly pretentious.