A Successful Writer is a Professional

It’s the first day of September and so the summer is almost over and the fall almost here! But it's also the first Wednesday of the month and so that means it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG)  post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. And I do have a few challenges, namely getting all my stories together for my next book, “Bad Apps”. 

Upcoming Short Fiction Collection

I've been aiming to release “Bad Apps”, a collection of short fiction about weird and deadly mobile apps, by, ha! this month. I had moved the release date from August to September, but now the latter is here and I still have several stories to revise. I also want to do a beta release before I do an official release. If anyone is interested in reading a beta copy of the book just let me know and I'll be happy to send you one. All I ask in exchange is, of course, your honest feedback. Anyway, I think I'm going to have to push that official book release date into October, maybe even November. Holding a day job and trying to balance it out with my writing life doesn't allow for strict book deadlines. 

IWSG Question of the Month

The IWSG question for September is: How do you define success as a writer? Is it holding your book in your hand? Having a short story published? Making a certain amount of income from your writing? For myself, I define success as a writer as professionalism. Now, what is "professionalism"? I met the late Harlan Ellison at a World Con in Anaheim, California several years ago and he basically said that you will be acknowledged as a professional writer when you get paid for your work. 

Now, how much payment is considered professional writing? Harlan didn't say. I met him at a book signing table and so didn't have time to ask him a lot of questions because there was a big line behind me. Not only that, I'll admit, having not very much experience in professional writing at the time, and knowing his blunt and somewhat gruff reputation as nice of a person he was, I was a little intimidated by him. But I took to heart his advice about what makes a writer professional. So, my opinion of what makes a professional and, therefore, successful writer is payment for your work regardless of amount. 

How much you get paid for your writing to achieve professional status, in my opinion, doesn't matter. I’ll say it straight out, many times I don’t make enough off my writing to even pay half the month’s groceries (hence, I work a day job).There are public school teachers who get paid poorly but I wouldn’t call them subprofessionals because of it. It’s not their fault that a school district doesn’t pay them what they’re worth (and in some cases it’s not even the school district’s fault). So, as a writer, as long as you get paid something for your work and you approach your writing seriously, you’re a professional.

The payment may not even be money. It may be commodities like contributor copies but because there’s an exchange going on between you and the person you give your book to, you are being paid for it and that makes you a professional. Here in the US, professionalism is defined by payment for your work that you trained or studied in, and many of us have trained in our writing whether formerly (e.g through a university writing degree program) or informally (e.g. self-taught). 

Yet, this measurement of professionalism is flexible and so can change with a society’s or even sub-society’s standards. For example, a hippy commune that doesn’t exchange goods by currency can consider a writer among them as a professional (or whatever equivalent term they may use for it). That’s because, there’s no monetary system to measure a writer’s work by in that social context. So, professionalism for a writer is not fixed in stone. And neither is success. So, professionalism is my definition for writing success because that’s how I measure my own status as a writer. And my writer status is not a very high one. (Again, I work a day job.) Success is different to different people and so it’s not universally right or wrong. 

When it comes down to it, real writing success is meeting the goal that you want as a writer. For some that may be payment for their work; for others it may just be publication in a small circle of readers. That said, what is your definition of success as a writer? What is writing success defined according to your writing goals?

Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: Rebecca Douglass, T. Powell Coltrin @Journaling Woman, Natalie Aguirre, Karen Lynn, and C. Lee McKenzie! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels! 

Until next time . . .