{"id":4724,"date":"2019-06-22T22:04:18","date_gmt":"2019-06-23T02:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/?p=4724"},"modified":"2019-06-22T22:04:18","modified_gmt":"2019-06-23T02:04:18","slug":"3-things-nobody-tells-you-about-the-writing-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/3-things-nobody-tells-you-about-the-writing-life\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Things Nobody Tells You About The Writing Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I published my first short story in Redbook<\/em> after winning a prize, I thought my career was set. I was my MFA program\u2019s star; I\u2019d made a lot of money (for a graduate student) from the prize and the magazine; I was getting fan mail and queries from agents. But even though I\u2019d spent over two years in the program, nobody told me what my career could be like. When I got my degree I had no idea what the writing life was like and learned three key things the hard way.<\/p>\n

1–You need to accept from the start that you have very little control. You can polish your work as much as you can, read widely and educate yourself as an author; attend seminars; find a terrific mentor; network like crazy; get a top agent and even land a book contract with a great publisher\u2013but what happens to your book once it\u2019s born may seem completely random at times. Other books just like it will swamp yours. Books that are far worse will get great reviews or better sales. Your book may simply be ignored by reviewers of all kinds for reasons you will never know. So you have to focus on what you can control: being the best writer you can be; enjoying what you do while you do it, plan it, revise it, and research it. And then, try to let go and move on to another project.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>2-Writing is a business. It always was and always will be. Expect pressure from all sides on you to sell, sell, sell. When I started out, bookmarks and other petty swag were in. Then I was urged not just to attend conferences but to advertise in conference programs. Later came building my web site, book trailers, establishing a Facebook and Goodreads presence, blogging, tweeting, blog tours. There\u2019s always something new which is the magic answer to making you successful. But the competition gets fiercer all the time and you can find that promotion is a rat hole. It\u2019s important to establish parameters for yourself since you can\u2019t do everything and be everywhere. Never let promotion become more important than writing itself, and just because something works for someone else is no guarantee it\u2019ll work for you.<\/p>\n

3–The writing life will be lonelier than you can imagine despite all the writers you might meet and hang out with, and they\u2019re not always the easiest people to be around. Let\u2019s face it, are you<\/em>? Ask your significant other. As paradoxical as it might seem, don\u2019t let writing take over your life. If you haven\u2019t already, start building a life for yourself that has other compelling interests. Travel. Learn to play an instrument. Study a foreign language. Garden. Train for a triathalon. Get a dog. It doesn\u2019t matter what you do as long as writing isn\u2019t the be-all and end-all of your existence, because otherwise those days (or weeks or months or even years) when things go south you\u2019ll feel empty. And make sure you have plenty of friends who aren\u2019t writers so that you\u2019re not constantly talking shop. Normal people can be interesting, too.<\/p>\n

Lev Raphael offers creative writing workshops online at writewithoutborders.com after over 15 years of university teaching.\u00a0 He’s authored 26 books in genres from memoir to mystery, most recently State University of Murder.<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I published my first short story in Redbook after winning a prize, I thought my career was set. I was my MFA program\u2019s star; I\u2019d made a lot of money (for a graduate student) from the prize and the magazine; I was getting fan mail and queries from agents. But even though I\u2019d spent … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[298,497,95,1247,1259,165,166,496,1709,1219,495,132,206],"class_list":["post-4724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice-for-writers","tag-advice-for-writers","tag-authors","tag-creative-writing-2","tag-creative-writing-workshops","tag-http-writewithoutborders-com","tag-inspiration","tag-motivation","tag-publishing","tag-state-university-of-murder","tag-writewithoutborders-com","tag-writing","tag-writing-tips","tag-writing-workshops"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4724"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4882,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4724\/revisions\/4882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}