Staying True to Yourself after Publication
Erin Bartels
There is no denying that for most writers, publication of that first book is the main goal, the thing that keeps you going when discouragement threatens to bury you. You want readers for that book you’ve worked on so hard for so long. All of your energy is channeled into making your work better, making connections with agents and editors, making writer friends to support you along the way.
And then, if you keep at it and you have a bit of luck, you reach that goal. Your debut novel releases and you pour yourself into the next book.
And this is where it can get…complicated.
Because now, you’re not just writing for you. Now you are writing for the person who posted the tepid Goodreads review and was sure to include suggestions for how you could improve. Now you’re writing for the superfan who would “give this book a thousand stars if they let me!” and hopes that the next one is “just like it.” (It’s not.) Now you are writing with a keen awareness that people you know in real life are reading you. And judging you.
When you start writing your first book, it is an intimate affair. Just you and your draft, up late at night, sharing secrets with each other, whispering in each other’s waiting ears. But when you start work on your second, third, fourth, fifth book, there are more parties present.
All the people who loved your work, all the people who hated it, and all the people who were indifferent to it. And if you’re not careful, your intimate relationship with your draft can feel less like it is happening behind tastefully closed doors and more like it’s a sex scene being filmed for a movie—where from one angle, it looks like there are just two people in the room, but pan out and there are all those eyes watching, all those voices telling you how you should be doing it differently, better, more to the audience’s liking.
Does writing change after publication? Yes. Mostly because you have way less time to write now!
Does it have to become a group project? I don’t think so.
I’m currently drafting books five and six as books three and four come out in the next couple years. I’m doing my best to draft each of these new projects as though they are my first book, as though no readers, with their expectations and preferences and pet peeves, exist.
Why? Because I didn’t start writing novels simply to sell books. I started writing novels because I had things I wanted to say and longform fiction seemed like the best medium to say them. I write fiction to figure out what I think about things. I write fiction because I feel a story welling up inside of me.
It all has to come from me. My voice. My perspective. My heart. And in order to hold onto that, in order to write the story only I can write, I can’t be constantly worried about what they will say about it, how they will react.
Will they reject that character because she said that? Will they object to the plot turning this way? Will they be incensed that I put too much of my faith into it? Or too little? Will I get raked over the coals because this character’s opinion isn’t politically correct enough?
When I feel myself thinking too much about what a reader may like or dislike, my voice gets smaller and theirs gets bigger. I begin to write not from a posture of confidence but from one of timidity. I start editing out the stuff I think people may object to when it’s those very things that will make my writing my writing.
As I write the next book and the next, I have to continually remind myself that I write to express myself, not to express the opinions of others. I have to write for me, first and foremost, especially during that first tender draft.
If those who are critical of your writing feel you should have done this instead of that, said this or that or the other thing, I want you to know that you are not beholden to them. They’re not your boss. And they may not even be your reader—and why would you cater to someone who isn’t even the right reader for your book?
It’s not your duty to write the book other people expect. It’s your duty to write the book that’s set up shop inside your heart and mind and won’t let you rest until you write it. It’s your duty to write that book in such a way that it expresses your unique viewpoint. If the critics (or the fans) want some other book, let them write it.
You just keep writing your book in your voice. Because if you don’t, no one will.
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Erin Bartels is the award-winning author of We Hope for Better Things (2020 Michigan Notable Book, 2020 WFWA Star Award–winner, 2019 Christy Award finalist), The Words between Us (2020 Christy Award finalist, 2015 WFWA Rising Star Award finalist), and All That We Carried (January 2021). She is a member of the Capital City Writers and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. Erin lives in Lansing, Michigan.
Facebook (@erinbartelsauthor), Twitter (@ErinLBartels), and Instagram (@erinbartelswrites).
About THE WORDS BETWEEN US
ALL THAT WE CARRIED
Ten years ago, sisters Olivia and Melanie Greene were on a backcountry hiking trip when their parents were in a fatal car accident. Over the years, they grew apart, each coping with the loss in her own way. Olivia plunged herself into law school, work, and a materialist view of the world–what you see is what you get, and that’s all you get. Melanie dropped out of college and developed an online life-coaching business around her cafeteria-style spirituality–a little of this, a little of that, whatever makes you happy.
Now, at Melanie’s insistence (and against Olivia’s better judgment), they are embarking on a hike in the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In this remote wilderness they’ll face their deepest fears, question their most dearly held beliefs, and begin to see that perhaps the best way to move forward is the one way they had never considered.
Michigan Notable Book Award winner Erin Bartels draws from personal experience hiking backcountry trails with her sister to bring you a story about the complexities of grief, faith, and sisterhood.
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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips
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This is exactly what I was thinking just yesterday as I finish my 4th novel. After attending a ZOOM WFWA event, I began to “hear” a lot of voices telling me to put things in, take things out. Not anything that was actually said, but that was the message in my head. I ended up hitting a HUGE writing block.
You are SO right – I’m not writing for anyone else but myself. I’m the only reader that matters. If it sells once it’s finished, that would be great – I still receive a few royalties from Amazon on my other 3 novels which tells me people are still buying my books, not to validate my writing, stories, plots, or the process.
It’s taken my 10 years for this novel to go from an idea to written pages and although I have a self-imposed deadline of February 25th to have it ready to send out into the publishing world, I’m not going to allow others do dictate when, how, and when!
So happy to have read this and to know I’m not the only one who feels this way!
I’m glad it helped, Raven! Taking some advice is good; taking ALL THE ADVICE never works. 🙂