Perspective on writing

I’m a fan of Michael J. Sullivan, both his work and…well, him. I think he represents the professional writer of the near future, a hybrid between traditional and self-publishing, and seems to be a generally good guy. He’s built a strong following–strong enough that his Kickstarter for his next self-publishing project set all sorts of records for fiction publishing projects in the first four days. One of the keys to his success is his accessibility to his fans, as marked by the fact that of the 140+ comments on the kickstarter project page, his responses to questions and comments account for at least 30-40% of them. But one response that leapt out at me was this one:

@Stephen – most of my early works (about 8 or 9) weren’t written for publication. They were me teaching myself how to write. So, no one sees them. My first published work was number 14. There are a few decent stories in 10 – 13. But they never got picked up by a publisher and I’ve never taken the time to polish and self-publish them. Here is a complete list of my books since #14:

14. The Crown Conspiracy – Riyria Revelations #1 – released in Theft of Swords Omnibus
15. Avempartha – Riyria Revelations #2 – release in Theft of Swords Omnibus
16. Nyphron Rising – RIyria Revelations #3 – released in Rise of Empire Omnibus
17. The Emerald Storm – Riryia Revelations #4 – released in Rise of Empire Omnibus
18, Wintertide – Riyria Revelations #5 – released in Heir of Novron Omnibus
19. Percepliuis – Riyria Revelations #6 – released in Heir of Novron Omnibus
20. Antithesis – not yet published – no pending release date
21. The Crown Tower – Riyria Chronicles #1
22. The Rose and the Thorn – Riyria Chronciles #2
23. Hollow World – science fiction
24. Rhune – First Empire #1 – release date scheduled for summer of 2016
25. Dherg – First Empire #2 – release date TBD
26. Rhist – First Empire #3 – release date TBD
27. Fhrey – First Empire #4 – release date TBD
28. Phyre – First Empire #5 – release date TBD
29. The Death of Dulgath – release date Nov 2015.

Thirteen books just learning to write. If that doesn’t discourage you, you’re probably a real writer. Of course everyone’s story is different. Some publish their first novel. Some get in on their sixth or seventh. And some never do. Would it be a good or bad thing if we could see the future? Would Sullivan have taken ten years off from writing (during which he essentially gave up) had he known that someday the number of his sold novels would surpass the number of ones he would have to write to get to that point? Would he have come back to writing if he knew it would take thirteen tries to sell one?

I’d like to say that I don’t care if I ever sell or not, that I’d write anyway just because I love telling stories. But at the same time I hold on to a belief that I’m going to get there someday, that I can build the skills to write books people will want to read. Part of that is just the internal drive I’ve always had that if I’m going to do something, I want to do it well. And having people buy my books is apparently my metric of “doing writing well.”

But for now I have to deal with the growing list of novels I’ve written that I’m pretty sure…well…stink. For the moment that doesn’t seem to be a problem, since I can still somewhat tell why they stink. That might change if I get to the point where I feel I’ve done the best I can do and it’s still not good enough. But for now I find posts like Sullivan’s motivating. Yeah, I may write 13 duds. But someday I may have 16 that rock. Heck, I’d settle for one at this point.