Writing For Publication vs. Writing For Myself

Recently, I've been struggling a lot with my writing.

For several months now, I've been rewriting The Sandcastle's Way, a young adult lesbian love story I first drafted last summer. That novel sprung from a single, tiny little spark of inspiration - I overheard a conversation at the beach and wove a story around it. The first draft came together easily; I was inspired and excited about it; I shared it with people who read it, loved it, encouraged me and gave me helpful feedback.

But rewriting it has been tough. It feels like I've run up against mental roadblocks at every turn. I couldn't keep straight what I wanted to do with it and what direction I wanted to take it. And now, I've figured out why.

It's because of my dream of becoming an author. On the surface, there's nothing wrong with it; I love to write, and I want to share that with the world by writing books that people can read and love. But I came up against the same sort of thing earlier this year in regards to college. I'd always kind of assumed that I'd go to college right after high school, because that's what you do in our society. You graduate high school and you're expected to pick a major and go to college, immediately. The thing is, I hadn't even realized I'd been putting so much pressure on myself to go to college as soon as I graduated. And when I did realize it, I asked myself, Why do I have to go right away?

And the answer smacked me right over the head: Duh! I didn't.

Immediately, the pressure was gone. I felt much freer, and light as a feather.

My dream of becoming an author is the same way, and here's how I know. When I was about twelve and starting to write lengthier stories - novellas like my raccoon story (about a homeschooled girl who raises orphaned raccoon kits), or my historical fiction novellas about the Titanic and the Holocaust and Hiroshima - when I was writing those, I was writing them for me. I guess I kind of knew I wanted to be a published author someday, but that's not why I was writing them - I was just writing them because it was fun. I was writing because I enjoyed it; nothing else.

But somewhere along the lines, that changed. I started to learn more about the publishing industry. I started researching agents and publishing companies and facts on how to get published. By the time I began rewriting The Sandcastle's Way this year, I was plagued not by thoughts of how I could better the story itself, but how it would fit on bookstore shelves. I was thinking about how I could get an agent for my project; I was thinking about beta readers and editors. I thought about the market for a book like mine and wondered if it would fit in any one genre. I wondered what the public feedback would be. All this before it was even ready for beta readers, mind you!

In other words, I wasn't writing to write anymore; I was writing to get published. And it wasn't nearly as enjoyable.

Come to think of it, it wasn't enjoyable at all.

I kind of talked about this when I announced the winner of my giveaway, but in that post I mostly focused on the writing aspect. I discussed teen authordom and how, writing-wise, some teens might not be ready for publication. Of course, the same can obviously be said for some adults, but I was thinking about it a lot in terms of myself. I do think my writing has improved, but I can definitely see potential for better. However, that alone wouldn't really be enough to stop me, and shouldn't be enough to stop anyone else, either. As my mom pointed out, your writing will change and grow your entire life, so there's no reason to put off pursuing publication on the grounds that you might improve. (Because if you keep writing, you will improve. Always.)

But like I said, it isn't so much my writing quality that has made me hesitant to pursue authordom as a teenager lately - it's the thought of actual publication that makes me feel like I'm not ready to be an author yet.

Maybe things were different decades ago, but these days authors have a lot of responsibilities. They can't just write a manuscript, send it to a publisher, and then sit back and relax; they have to be very active in their book's "life". It's part of their job to promote their book; they're practically required to do interviews, not just online but over the phone, in person, and even on TV. And there is, of course, the fact that authors have to deal with contracts and royalty checks and agents and editors and a whole publishing house of steps. And I don't feel ready for that - in fact, it completely overwhelms me. I'm fifteen - I've never even had a real job before!

As with the college thing, I realized I had been putting mega pressure on myself to get published as soon as possible - even if that meant I wasn't ready for it yet. So, I reevaluated. I thought it over and I decided that I needed to change my priorities.

Here's the conclusion I've come to: for now, at least, I'm putting aside The Sandcastle's Way. It's too tangled up in my publishing thoughts for me to focus on it right now; it was becoming an obligation, not an enjoyable pastime. When I wrote those first novellas, I wrote them because I had a story in my head, and I put words to paper for the simple joy of writing them. And that's when I've always enjoyed writing the most, I realized - when I was doing it for myself, without expectations.

So right now, I'm going to focus on just writing. No thoughts of publication - I'm just going to write because I want to write, and my readers will be family and friends who are interested and supportive. I've been wanting to get back into historical fiction for awhile now, anyway, and so maybe I'll use this as a chance to do so.

Writing for myself like I'm doing, I won't have to worry about accuracy. I mean, yes, I'll try to get the facts right, but if I'm writing historical fiction that only me and my family and friends are reading, I don't have to worry about it if I mess something up. And this might sound silly, especially to the writers out there who write "too much" and feel they'll have to cut lots of passages during revision...but the first draft of The Sandcastle's Way was about 54K. Rather on the short side for a novel; I was always wondering if my chapters were too short! With my new writing plan, though, length won't be an issue at all.

And self-doubt will (hopefully) be nearly nonexistent, because I won't be worrying about publication! Which is, like, the best news of the century.

If you haven't guessed, I'm very, VERY excited to get started on a new project. I don't plan on doing anything big, and I haven't even decided on a genre yet...maybe I'll try writing a fantasy, or maybe some historical fiction - or even just another contemporary fiction, I don't know! All I know is that whatever it is, it will be pressure-free, because I'll be writing it just to write.

And I'm very much looking forward to it.