Motivation, other than publishing?

[tierra]

Hey there everyone!

I’ve been looking around on this forum for a few months now, but this is my first post. Like many of you, during the pandemic I wrote a manuscript. We were all likely driven by different motivations. Some people had a lot of extra time on their hands. Others experienced or processed new and complex emotions, wedging an idea in their brain that they just had to write down for risk of ex/imploding. Others still thought that maybe they could turn something they love to do into a little bit of extra money during these hard times. Or they had been successfully published before, and were ready for another go.

Whatever the motivation, we all find ourselves here, in this position. This position of having worked hard and produced something you truly feel is good, only to be faced with a world that does not put value on this brand of hard work. It’s a world that puts very little value in hard work of any kind, when it really comes down to it. I think everyone here has had more or less the same experience after submitting queries with dozens of agents: response times that are so incredibly short that you are certain they hadn’t spent more than a moment looking at your submission. Or response times that never end, leaving you floating in this world of uncertainty as you wait for someone in the world to look at you and say “I see you.”

(I must add however, I have heard that the process of actually getting published can be quite demoralizing as well. )

I am not putting any blame for this on the agents. I do not think they are heartless, cruel, or any sort of thing other than a human being doing their job, many, I'm sure, doing it very well. What I this is at fault is this world of ours where we don’t invest in human ingenuity. We’re ok with consuming media that has been churned out over and over and over because it’s addictive. People do not watch, attend, or often pay for, original, independent art. But then we complain when our own original, independent art is not appreciated. There are good, new, ideas out there that we are willfully overlooking. Partly we as individuals are at fault. But mostly I think our society is at fault. We are not paid to consume art, and we must always be getting paid if we are going to survive. The fact that so many people on here have even written a manuscript you are proud of enough to shop it around to strangers and face rejection, is nothing short of a miracle. I’m sorry most of you will never see any societal/monetary “benefit” from what you have done.

Which brings me to my question: given that this is the current environment of publishing, what motivation are you all finding to sit down and keep doing it? I thought this might hopefully serve as a therapeutic effort; I’d love to hear how you all inspire yourselves, what you feel you are working towards as you continue developing your art if publishing reasonably and realistically cannot be a goal.

I appreciate your time, I appreciate your art. We must all keep doing it, the world needs it.

[Neil Lynch]

Hi tierra, welcome and 'great post'!  I like your username, too. 

Some very deep questions.

I've got to say I've stolen off the Internet enough times so

People do not watch, attend, or often pay for, original, independent art

certainly does apply to me.  And I totally agree that most of us won't receive monetary benefit for our efforts and that it, the writing game, is particularly cruel in that regard.  You invest so much and might just get back a big fat nothing back.  Who exactly would that appeal to?  Financial rewards, I can struggle on by without.  The thought of work not being read mortifies me on the other hand.

I did write my last novel (see signature) during the epidemic as you suggest and in many ways it was to relieve boredom.  But it was also something that had played on my mind for a good 30 years.  So I knew the subject matter well enough - it had been fermenting away - whilst recent events in my life had added a sprinkling of stardust - I felt ;) - where the story line was concerned.

My motivation for my next book?  It's got to be to write something better that people might just read.  Which might just lead to them giving my current novel a sympathetic 2/3 hours of their time.

I'm not really in it 'for the money'.

You got a manuscript in the offing / in your head?  The world will forever need manuscripts.

[vivaviolet]

Hi, Tierra. I keep going because I have yet to write a novel I truly love.

[tierra]

Hey there Neil - Thanks so much for such a thoughtful response! This stuck out to me the most:

The thought of work not being read mortifies me on the other hand.

I think that's a lot of what I've been feeling, too. Not quite mortification, but a sadness. Just this thought of 'I think some people would enjoy what I've written!' but having no reasonable way of getting it out in front of anyone. It's not really about money for me, either. I like your idea of simply posting it online and letting whomever will come across it have the chance to dig in. I have your story open on my computer, and I am excited to read it.

I have a feeling that you and I probably share many ideals. My manuscript as well discusses climate change and our role in the crisis. That's part of why I'm so saddened that books like yours and mine have yet to find a place to go. I think it's so important to flood the world with ideas and information, but the path to do that is blocked by so many gatekeepers. We are at an incredibly precarious tipping point in not only human evolution, but in the well-being of this entire beautiful blue marble of ours, and gosh dang it, we need people to know about it.

[tierra]

Hi, Tierra. I keep going because I have yet to write a novel I truly love.

Hey! I think that's a great reason! I find it so hard to keep going when the work I produce is not up to my own standards, so it's nice to hear that others push their way through those hard times. Thank you for sharing!

[Neil Lynch]

I have your story open on my computer, and I am excited to read it.

I've heard that one before!     Seriously, I hope you do read it.  I would be so impressed.  There's something in it for everyone to disagree with / hate.  Just so long as the majority of readers can agree with the majority of what I claim - and that people do eventually read it - I know it will have been worth me writing it.  I just know most people seem to want the ecocide ('climate change', the element that gets all the focus) to magically disappear with minimal effort required.  Quite the definition of DELUSION, I would say.  People are still blissfully starting families when the spectre of the majority of multicellular life disappearing within a couple of hundred years is still on the horizon.  For a start, every future generation, for instance, is already going to be facing more and more health problems from birth.  Sure, medicine will continue to advance, but that is looking at things the wrong way, still.  We should be focussing on the CAUSE, not the symptoms.  We need that hammering into our heads.

Of course, I should point out, it's only the thought of THIS novel not getting read that mortifies me.  Ie.  For the reasons above.  Anything else I write not getting read would merely leave me with a great feeling of regret.   

And I'll certainly give yours a read - if you'd like me to & permit me to.  I wrote the bulk of my reply (which I'm not going to change, now) after I snipped out the quote, with only a view to reading the rest of your reply after.  And then responding to that, too.  So I must say, I'm fascinated your book, too, discusses climate change and our role in the crisis. 

My book, my ideology, is anti-capitalism, capitalism is behind the ecocide.  People with zero self-respect love to exploit the planet, its nature, other folk.  That's the way the world is.  Therefore, even if everything about the novel and the query were perfect, I still doubt I'd have received any genuine offer to publish.  So, I don't know why I wasted my time querying agents. 

Have you not considered giving yours away?  It's probably the easiest way to get the 8 billion readers my book needs.

You can always write another, later!   

[tierra]

My book, my ideology, is anti-capitalism, capitalism is behind the ecocide.  People with zero self-respect love to exploit the planet, its nature, other folk.  That's the way the world is. 

Sure hope, then, that you follow a vegan lifestyle! The ecocide is heavily driven by deforestation for animal feed, as I'm sure you're well aware ;) to mention nothing of the abhorrent cruelty involved.

I'm anti-capitalist, too, which makes this whole process so much more uncomfortable. I hadn't really considered giving my book away for free as I hadn't quite envisioned how that would look. But your extremely simple method makes me embarrassed I hadn't thought of it! Ha!

Feel free to DM me if you ever want a pal to yell into the void with!

[Neil Lynch]

I have to say, I'm not actually vegan, though I do agree with your comment on animal husbandry.  The way I see it, *capitalism was fated to get us into this mess.  Religion was always going to come along as a tool of capitalism to be used to further exploit people.  Capitalists were always going to want enormous populations (large labour pool, low wages / huge markets = massive profits).  I don't see anything ethically wrong with eating animal products per se and animals do die horrible deaths in nature all the time (death, itself, is horrible, period, of course).  To feed the overpopulated world they created (and to maximise profits), capitalists cut corners cynically.  Hence all the husbandry issues.  But I am trying to do my bit all the same in releasing the novel, so I still sleep easily at night.    And I do lead a humble existence (I lived in Japan OUAT and fully embraced minimalism).

*Half of nature sees individuals defend territories / resources, capitalism is merely the human extension, isn't it!

Now to send that DM re my interest in getting a peek at your MS...