Nobody Cares About Your Dream
There, I said it. I know it sounds incredibly harsh. It’s especially unfair because writing is something so personal. We desperately want people to care about what we have to say; especially our loved ones. But sometimes, your loved ones will be the harshest critics you’ll have.
In my case, both parents, my significant other and several aunties were absolutely appalled by the subject matter of my debut novel, Paradise in Flames. One parent took umbrage to me writing a character who suffered childhood abuse because they took it as a reflection on how they parented me. That same parent told me that I should write something different, something more pleasant. My other parent, who offered to give me feedback on my story, delayed in doing so, being too busy instead with personal pursuits and work. (Which is fine, but no one should ever offer to give a writer feedback if they’re too busy. It’s hard enough finding beta readers as it is and it helps to not give us hope.)
My significant other said some ugly things about me and my reasons for writing a story about demons and angels. Then, instead of apologizing later, he said that I “need to be prepared to receive harsh criticism”. Which is a fair assessment, but I at least expected to find support from my own loved ones, my team members in my personal battle against the world.
Not all lack of support is direct, though. Sometimes lack of support comes in the form of friends saying they’ll buy your book, but never inquiring anything deeper about it than what it’s about. Sometimes it’s a friend telling you a story about how their other author friend failed to get their work published and telling you that no one reads anymore.
I didn’t just list these grievances of mine to air out my dirty laundry. (Although, I must admit, that part feels great.) I did it so you could see that this is a universal experience for pretty much every writer. Maybe it varies. Maybe some of your family members or friends are 100% supportive. But even if they are, be prepared for an unsupportive public.
Readers you don’t know don’t care about your dream. As a matter of fact, some of them may hate your work so much that they hope your dream is thwarted. While agents and publishers can be the fairy godmothers who make your dreams come true, they especially don’t care about you dream if you don’t do the work to make your manuscript flawless and if you don’t have a plan to market it.
But the good news is that in the beginning, the only person who has to care about your dream is you. Many people will say no to you, but you only need to say yes to yourself. (I honestly forget who originally said that and I can’t find it anywhere on Google.)
It’s important to focus on the people who believe in you, as well. When no one else volunteered to read my manuscript and give me feedback, my friend Joey did. In my writer’s critique group, there are a few people who hate my guts for no discernible reason and always “pass” on critiquing my work. But I have two people (one in the Tuesday critique and one in the Saturday critique) who always ask me to give them a copy of my work if they missed the opportunity to critique it.
The great thing about being a writer is that you get to find out who “your team” really is. You’ll find that they aren’t the people who are bound to you merely by blood or geographical convenience. Your team are the people who care about your stories because they are all mosaics of you.
It doesn’t matter what kind of writer you are; whether you’re a writer with one really good idea, but you wouldn’t mind being a pilot instructor for the rest of your life or you refuse to be anything but a writer for the rest of your life. Sometimes, the people who should care about your happiness, the people who claim to have allied themselves to you, will fail you miserably. But don’t let that prevent you from doing whatever it takes to put your writing out there. As a writer, your main obligation is to your characters. They’re worth it. Their presence and their journeys are eternal. Your family’s and friends’ lack of support for you is not.
Today, I write this post for me. Maybe tomorrow, it’ll be for you.
In my case, both parents, my significant other and several aunties were absolutely appalled by the subject matter of my debut novel, Paradise in Flames. One parent took umbrage to me writing a character who suffered childhood abuse because they took it as a reflection on how they parented me. That same parent told me that I should write something different, something more pleasant. My other parent, who offered to give me feedback on my story, delayed in doing so, being too busy instead with personal pursuits and work. (Which is fine, but no one should ever offer to give a writer feedback if they’re too busy. It’s hard enough finding beta readers as it is and it helps to not give us hope.)
My significant other said some ugly things about me and my reasons for writing a story about demons and angels. Then, instead of apologizing later, he said that I “need to be prepared to receive harsh criticism”. Which is a fair assessment, but I at least expected to find support from my own loved ones, my team members in my personal battle against the world.
Not all lack of support is direct, though. Sometimes lack of support comes in the form of friends saying they’ll buy your book, but never inquiring anything deeper about it than what it’s about. Sometimes it’s a friend telling you a story about how their other author friend failed to get their work published and telling you that no one reads anymore.
I didn’t just list these grievances of mine to air out my dirty laundry. (Although, I must admit, that part feels great.) I did it so you could see that this is a universal experience for pretty much every writer. Maybe it varies. Maybe some of your family members or friends are 100% supportive. But even if they are, be prepared for an unsupportive public.
Readers you don’t know don’t care about your dream. As a matter of fact, some of them may hate your work so much that they hope your dream is thwarted. While agents and publishers can be the fairy godmothers who make your dreams come true, they especially don’t care about you dream if you don’t do the work to make your manuscript flawless and if you don’t have a plan to market it.
But the good news is that in the beginning, the only person who has to care about your dream is you. Many people will say no to you, but you only need to say yes to yourself. (I honestly forget who originally said that and I can’t find it anywhere on Google.)
It’s important to focus on the people who believe in you, as well. When no one else volunteered to read my manuscript and give me feedback, my friend Joey did. In my writer’s critique group, there are a few people who hate my guts for no discernible reason and always “pass” on critiquing my work. But I have two people (one in the Tuesday critique and one in the Saturday critique) who always ask me to give them a copy of my work if they missed the opportunity to critique it.
The great thing about being a writer is that you get to find out who “your team” really is. You’ll find that they aren’t the people who are bound to you merely by blood or geographical convenience. Your team are the people who care about your stories because they are all mosaics of you.
It doesn’t matter what kind of writer you are; whether you’re a writer with one really good idea, but you wouldn’t mind being a pilot instructor for the rest of your life or you refuse to be anything but a writer for the rest of your life. Sometimes, the people who should care about your happiness, the people who claim to have allied themselves to you, will fail you miserably. But don’t let that prevent you from doing whatever it takes to put your writing out there. As a writer, your main obligation is to your characters. They’re worth it. Their presence and their journeys are eternal. Your family’s and friends’ lack of support for you is not.
Today, I write this post for me. Maybe tomorrow, it’ll be for you.
Comments
Post a Comment