When you’re just starting out as an author, and you look through Amazon at the 25,887,169 paperback books, 8,996,868 hardback books, and 1,594,571 Kindle books (at the time of this post’s publication), it can be quite daunting to encourage yourself to get out there. That’s a lot of other voices to compete with, and that’s a large crowd to stand out from.
But what is a number? Broken down further, if you’re a fantasy writer like me, you’re only competing against 310,288 books. If you’re a romance writer, you’ve only got 486,074. If you’re a young adult novelist, you’re only up against 318,631 others. Still quite the competition, but much easier to make yourself heard.
Regardless of the numbers you’re up against, most of what it takes to become a “successful” author/writer comes down to your mentality. Do you consider yourself #310,288/310,288, or #1?
If you’ve read the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, you’ll know that he suggests it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a master in something.
To me, there’s a difference between being a professional, a master, and an expert. I like to think about them like the different levels of graduating college. A professional is like getting your BA, where you’ve put a lot of time and interest in studying a certain topic and you understand the basics of how to do the job. A master is, well, like the MAs or MFAs when you go above and beyond to get further into the fine tuning of the specific topic. And the expert is like the PhD, where you just add it on to your name and no one questions you. Ever.
Oftentimes, we as writers and authors like to try and combine all three. We feel like we’re not going to be heard unless we slap that PhD onto our names, but we don’t take the time to focus on being a professional first, then being a master before we can consider ourselves experts in the craft. Every author knows what it’s like to be at the beginning, but none so much as those who still struggle. But even though I’m not on the New York Times Bestseller list, I still consider myself a professional.
Professional: a person competent or skilled in a particular activity.
Master: a skilled practitioner of a particular art or activity.
Expert: a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area.
I believe becoming a “professional” writer is a personal choice. If you read anything by Joanna Penn at TheCreativePenn.com (which you should or you’re really doing yourself a disservice), and if you take a particular look at her novel, Career Change, you can read about how she went from working five days to four in order to focus on her writing career.
I related to that idea, because I did the same thing. And trust me, if you want to take yourself seriously, it’s something you should consider.
The decision to become a “professional” is when you don’t just talk about your career anymore. You be about your career. You want to write a book? Write it. You want to be a blogger? Blog something. Interested in travel writing? Pump out an article. Time and time again, no matter where you go, the same ideas stand firm : You can’t edit nothing.
I hate first drafts. I hate them so much. I really wish I could find a way around them. The first draft(s) of Immortality Awaits sucked. It’s not like Tides of Darkness is starting out as an award-winner, either. I’m not just saying that because I’m the author and my own worst critic. I’m saying that because they were/are legitimately awful. As, you will learn, all first drafts should be and will be. I was in the mindset that all authors had to do was pump out a manuscript, send it to an editor, get it “fixed”, find an agent, get it published, become the next J.K. Rowling.
Ha.
Haha.
Hahaha.
Hahahahaha.
Hahaha.
Haha.
Ha.
If you’re in this same mindset, reality check yourself. First and foremost, an editor does not fix your work for you. An editor just finds what’s wrong with your book, the things that don’t work, and the things that need strengthening, and then it’s your job to fix it and revise it. Don’t lose heart though, and think what I did the first round, either. Editors do not want you to fail. You’re not paying them your hard-earned money for them to tell you you suck. And for the most part, if you find the right ones, they’re not going to be scamming you into doing that, either.
You don’t have to have a book already published, or a blog with 18,000 followers to consider yourself a professional, either. You’re a professional writer when you decide to be, and it only furthers when you finally finish that manuscript you’ve been procrastinating. Then, your options change up a bit. Are you going to be self or traditionally published? If you choose self (which, if you do, read read read and then read some more about EVERYTHING in the self-publishing industry so you can be prepared for it all), don’t be one of the hundreds of thousands of self-publishers who choose their own cover and only self-edit. You can find an editor without having to pay for them. Join local workshops. Find people online. If you’re in college studying creative writing, team up with your colleagues.
Once you’ve started to consider yourself a professional, I do agree with the notion of 10,000 hours of practice before you start to get “really good”. I started writing when I was seven. I learned to read alongside my sister when I was four years old, and she would read me bedtime stories to practice and I read her lips. I learned how to write a paragraph in second grade. I composed my first 84-page manuscript at eight (I changed the page sizes to 5″x8″, so really it was only about 40 pages, but I still got close to 15,000 words at eight years old). I started getting into fan fiction in my early teen years, which I still think is good practice because you focus on the story first (which you should always do), and in fanfics you don’t have to embellish new characters (which is a task in and of itself.) In high school, I composed 3,000 pages and 267,000 words worth of scripts for a television show I wrote with someone who ended up editing Immortality Awaits. That, on top of the many story ideas I had tried and failed, and the countless hours I spent pouring my life into my first novel, equates to at least 10,000 hours. I’m not saying I’m the best writer in the world, and that I have nothing else to learn, because that is false. But I’m certainly working toward being the best I can.
Think of it this way:
10,000 hours=416 days.
And not like you can start today, spend three hours a day for the next 416 days, and then hit 10,000 hours.
That’s four hundred and sixteen full, twenty-four hour days.
If you want to write a book, then by all means, join the crowd and do so. If you want to be serious and be taken seriously, though, it all starts with you. Trust me, the moment you start to consider yourself a writer first and foremost, things change. When people used to ask me, “What do you do?” my response was always, “Oh, I’m a server at such and such, but I’d like to write a book one day.”
A simple alteration to that changed my life in more ways than I can even count. My answer then became, “I’m a writer, working on finishing my first book, but I work at such and such to pay the bills.” (Which more than likely will lead to, “Oh, what’s your book about?” Sell it.) Which then, after publication, turned into, “I just finished my first book, actually. I’m working on building my career, but my serving jobs still pay the bills.” (Which more than likely will lead to, “Oh, what’s your book about?” Sell it. It’s scary, but don’t put it off. Sell it.)
The simple mental switch from being a “server” full-time to an “author” helped me take myself seriously. While the world might not care about the fact you wrote a book, when you take yourself seriously and invite people on your journey with you, you’ll find the interest is much more abundant than you’d think, and people will join in agreeing you’re a professional.
If you’re having a hard time getting started, or believing in yourself or what have you, consider participating in next months’ NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month.) I discovered this challenge a few years ago via Cristian Mihai‘s blog, and I highly recommend it, especially if you’re having a hard time getting into a daily writing mindset. When you have to compose 1,667 words a day, it becomes much easier to accomplish by the end of the month. That, paired with connecting with the other authors in your area also participating (you’d be surprised how many you’ll find) helps get your mentality into a daily writing habit, and the support you’ll find will encourage you to finally finish that book you’ve been talking about.
Cover image found: https://www.flickr.com/photos/drewcoffman/4815205740/
Immortality Awaits 
