What Happens When You Say You're a Writer

Whether you’ve sold a hundred books or are writing for fun, the moment you share with the word that you write words onto a page, you’re almost guaranteed for these things to happen. For better or worse, these are the growing pains of telling the world you’re writing a novel.

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1. People will ask to see your work. Even if it’s your first draft, people (usually trying to be courteous or interested) will automatically assume if you tell people you write that you want to show off what you’ve written. Right that second, even if it is nowhere done. Even family members who you know haven’t picked up a book in twenty years will be lined up with their pitchforks waiting to see a copy of what you’ve got. 

   
   

2.  Your friends and family members will tell other people. So you’ve worked up the courage to tell your friend that you’re writing a novel, cool. What’s likely going to happen from there is when you run into another person, that friend will likely say, “Oh, guess what? They’re writing a novel!” to someone you probably were very unprepared to know such a detail about yourself. Or, in our case, it’ll be announced on social media long before you’ve mentally prepared yourself for the world to know. 

   
   

3. You’ll be told that your novel needs to be the next “big thing” like Harry Potter or the Hunger Games. Because that’s probably the only book they recognize and give you crippling imposter syndrome. 

   
   

4. People will assume this novel will be your one-way ticket to fame and fortune. Because of titles like the ones mentioned in number three, there’s this assumption that all writers make a ton of money and get movie deals and become generational classics. They aren’t really aware of the costly process it takes to publish a novel either traditional or indie and how most people just break even and that’s okay too. 

   
   

5. They’ll ask when it’ll be published and why it’s taking so long. Because inventing a story from scratch, editing, revising, formal edits, beta reads, sensitivity reads, proofreads, more edits, formatting, copywriting, and all the legality of publishing are just a super simple process that takes no time at all. Let’s not even mention the marketing of the novel. 

6. All jokes aside, not many people are writers and if you are working on a novel or have published already, you’re really cool and you should keep writing. 

That’s all for this week. See you next time (with hopefully a Visionary teaser) and write-on!

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