How Do You Become a 'Writer'? (Part 2)

Some tips if you can't help it.

A ways back, I shared a few insights about the writing life that I’ve picked up over the years. I’ve been an editor for well over a decade and have worked with more than 1,000 writers from a whole variety of backgrounds, so I have my antennae poised for bits of wisdom about writing that I can pass along. I promised to keep that series going, so here are a three more thoughts.

Keep your day job.

Brian Doyle gave this advice to me when I was just exploring the writing life: “Don’t quit your day job. It’s good to be in the habit of eating.”

There are two dynamics at play here. For one, it is supremely difficult to make a living by writing alone (and only getting harder with AI). Second, the kind of writing you want to create can only come from the heart. If you write because you want to please people and make money, you are locating your voice outside of yourself, and that’s a good way to create skimmable garbage. Once you accept that writing is passion work, however, you’re free to roam. Don’t worry about optimizing search engines—follow your unique curiosities, write the thing you want your grandkids to read, use words to explore the thing that terrifies you most.

I spent the better part of a decade writing a novel that imagines what the resurrection of the dead would be like if it happened in modern-day Indiana (there happens to be a lot of baseball and beer in the story, but it’s really a romance at heart). After it published, I was invited to participate in a book convention sponsored by our local county library and spent half a day in a hall with fellow writers from the Michiana region. We’re such nerds! I took my picture with Star Wars cosplay stormtroopers, met dusty local historians, and sold exactly two copies of my book and gave another away to a pastor. I walked away with just enough money to pay for two beignet orders at the New Orleans-style cafe across the street—my daughter and I spent the whole time dusting powdered sugar off our laps, but they were delicious. I thought that was a pretty good return on investment!

Don’t get me wrong: I wrote the novel because I wanted people to read it. And people did! I would have been thrilled if so many people bought copies that I could pick everything up and move to the Caymans to work on a second novel—what a dream that would be! But that hasn’t happened (yet), and looking back, I’m not crushed by that reality. I wrote it because I had something to say and it felt good to imagine that story and get it out into words. In short, I wrote it because I felt called to. I did the best I could with it and the rest is out of my hands.

But you never know what doors will open because of your writing. Even if you’re writing for six people, you are touching their hearts and minds, and those contact points often lead somewhere new and surprising. I’ve seen this pattern over and over: 1) A person creates something because they feel called to; 2) What they create doesn’t become a commercial success but they feel gratified and joyful; 3) Someone sees what they’ve done and recognizes their passion and makes a connection because they need an artist for a project that reaches many other people in a way the creator could never have imagined to start with.

So: If you feel called to write, then write! Show up to the page and invest in the craft and find joy there. Play the long game and don’t worry about the NYT bestseller list. You do you. That’s the only place from which you can generate something original.

(The ideal writing workdesk, in my opinion.)

Write for an audience—even if it’s just your mom.

Back to that idea of writing for just six people. If you feel called to write and to say something, then do what you can to say it well—and share that writing with others, even if it’s just your mom and best friend.

There’s always inherent value to writing for yourself—it clarifies thoughts and feelings and leads to insight. That’s always a good thing to do. You can even use writing as a way to pray. But to write for an audience changes the way you approach the page because you suddenly realize that your writing has to matter. The form your words take—the style and expression and verve and energy—has to be other-oriented if you want to reach people. Writing is fundamentally an act of communication, so use your words to touch someone’s life.

The easiest decision anyone makes in our digital age is to keep scrolling—all it takes is a twitch of the finger! This is what we’re competing with. If you have something to say, then you’d better dang well say it in a way that captures someone’s attention. Make your words worth the reader’s time.

Careful, now—I’m not saying that you should write to please people. See the first point above. Keep your writing anchored in your own search for what’s true—and then work on crafting the expression of that truth in a way that reaches off the page and grabs the reader by the throat.

Finding an audience is startlingly simple (but building that audience takes time). There are more ways to share your words now than ever. You can create a substack (but don’t get hung up on it and spend six months working out all the design elements—just get started). Or, better—just write a paragraph and send it to someone you know who could use a good word. Craft a few paragraphs for an Instagram post. Write an essay and send it to a publication you love—it doesn’t even matter if they pick it up! Show up to the page with the intention to make something that will change someone’s life. If you do that consistently, people will find you.

Give us something only you can give.

This last bit of advice is another little gem from Brian Doyle—and it has been a reliable North Star whenever I stare into the dark sky of a blank page. If the insight or delight or information that you are trying to articulate can be found anywhere else, people will go there instead. This isn’t to knock your skill—it’s just to say that it’s a big world and there’s a lot of talent out there.

If you focus on giving the reader something only you can offer, then you’ll discover a secret well behind your solar plexus, somewhere between your liver and your spleen, from which you’ll draw cold, dark water that will refresh both them and you. God put you here on this Earth to draw words from that well. Isn’t that why you’re reading this?

In the movie, Walk the Line, Sam Philips puts it in stark terms to a young Johnny Cash as he’s auditioning for a record deal. Cash and his buddies sing a familiar Gospel tune, and Philips interrupts him with this little speech, which has lived in my brain as a challenge ever since I saw it:

“If you was hit by a truck and you were lyin’ out in that gutter, dyin’, and you had time to sing one song—one song people would remember before you’re dirt, one song that would let God know what you felt about your time here on Earth, one song that would sum you up—you’re telling me that’s the song you would sing?”

He goes on to talk about how to create something real—something that has the potential to truly save people:

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See the first post in this series here:

How Do You Become a “Writer”? (Part 1)