TanyaschI would like to register a complaint. No, it’s not about this parrot what I purchased a half hour ago, he’s obviously just pining for the fjords. My complaint is about a lie.

Writing, according to what I was told growing up, is not a team sport. It requires only imagination, talent, and a willingness to practice and continue learning. I was given visions of an ivory tower somewhere, full of inspiration, where a writer could create masterpiece after masterpiece, uninterrupted by the concerns of “real” life. There would be no tests of strength or speed or agility, no performances, and certainly no public speaking. A writer was as invisible as the idea he/she cajoled out of the ether and set to blossoming on paper, which meant said writer did not need to be pretty or thin or athletic or sociable. A writer was judged on the characters he/she created, and their story – and not on how personable said writer was or wasn’t.

I believed it, with every fiber of my not-pretty not-thin not-athletic not-sociable being. I bought the whole sales pitch, and signed right up. I invested everything I had into that lie. It only took thirty years for me to figure out the painful truth, and don’t I feel dumb for not catching on sooner? A lot of time can be saved by reading the fine print.

The Ivory Tower Committee never said anything about a writer needing to have a “platform.” Not only does the writer have to craft the work and painstakingly shape it into the best representation of his/her vision, he/she must also be a public presence with a carefully cultivated fan base / network to have the best chance at publication. That was NOT in the brochure. No one said anything about Facebook or Twitter or being a teacher or a public speaker.

I am reading things now about needing a “niche,” a “body of expertise,” and an “ongoing relationship with a target audience.” (A Platform Boot Camp, article by Christina Katz, found in Writer’s Digest: Writer’s Yearbook 2010.) What fresh hell is this? I didn’t sign up for that – I would have remembered. (I would also have signed up for something like animal husbandry or forensic handwriting analysis instead of writing.)

I dug through my files, and scrounged up the deed for that Ivory Tower I bought when I was seven. Oh, oh cute, I signed it in crayon. And there is was, down at the very bottom, in letters so tiny they might have been mistaken for a decorative line: *life depicted applies to unpublished writers only.*

Of course. I can have my ivory tower, but I can’t expect anyone to know my name if I never step out the door. I can hide away and write masterpiece after masterpiece, but the stories are just going to sit in the corner and gather dust if I don’t send them into the world – that’s why I became a writer in the first place, because I wanted to share my stories – but without contacts and relationships, where will I send them?

Fair or not, in today’s industry almost no one in the book publishing business is willing to take a chance on a name no one has heard of, the name of some grown-up kid with a deed to an ivory tower and a head full of stories and a heart full of fear. Agents or publishers want much, much more than a story to sell.

So now I must set still more time aside to research and build my presence, to add to my embarrassingly small list of credentials. I’m too invested in the writing to back down now, the only thing I can do is step down out of my Ivory Tower and step up to the challenge of self-marketing and self-promotion. Which I dread.

 

(Writing in a Vacuum was previously posted at Blogging in the Dark on November 25th, 2009.)