I have had many conversations with beginner writers about how they should seek to publish their writing. They often tell me they started this, their first project, with the express aim of publishing it, or decided early on that publishing was the goal. They also tell me they believe all the work of writing their draft would feel wasted if the result wasn’t published. These writers are not writing for themselves, they’re writing to publish. Only to publish.
I think it’s a shame so many people feel that the project of writing something like a memoir or novel is only ‘worth it’ if they aim to publish it and try to make money from it.
I think the true benefit of writing your own story is – not what someone else thinks of it and whether they’re willing to buy or read it – but what it shows you about you: about your life and relationships, and about how far you’ve come.
The honest reply to these aspiring writers is that publishing is the last thing they should think about doing at this time.
Their work is not yet publishable (like all beginners, their work needs time to mature before being shown to an audience) but that’s the least of it. Writing cannot become publishable while the writer focuses all their energy on ‘getting published’ or ‘making money’ or even ‘telling their story to others’ as motivation for the work. The quest for external validation is the roadblock to achieving it.
Perhaps it’s the fault of late-stage capitalism, or a Protestant work ethic, or the rise of social media with its never ending appetite for more content. Wherever the fault, we must be rid of the assumption that any writing (or really, the fruits of any pastime) could or should automatically and immediately be considered for dissemination and monetisation. It is, at best, counterproductive.
Counterproductive, most of all, since such an emphasis so often leads to an inadequately developed product which is not sellable.
At worst, the focus on an outside audience who might be persuaded to give their attention or money for the writing (or other thing) prevents even the writer from gaining any benefit from the act of writing (or engaging in their hobby).
Writing should be valuable for the writer. When it isn’t, it’s just typing.
Counterintuitively, perhaps, the only way eventually to produce something worth showing to an audience is to be first writing for yourself, and yourself only.
Once you can write authentically, freed from the debilitating pressure of trying to please some unknown outsider or defend yourself from expected criticism, only then will you have a chance to produce purposeful writing that might resonate with others.
The Trap of Writing to Publish
I can’t tell you how often I’ve received an enquiry about a memoir (or sometimes a lightly fictionalised novel based on the author’s life) and found one or both of two things: the book is dull and requires a real effort to read, and/or the writer is not being truthful with themselves or the reader, and may be trying to settle a score or rewrite history.
In a case where the book is dull, the writer is often info-dumping about themselves as though they were trying to get a new acquaintance fully up to speed on who they are and their whole life to date.
Can you imagine how overwhelming and yet boring that would be to try to sit through in real life? Wouldn’t you want to excuse yourself as soon as possible?
It’s the same in a book, and it’s because the author is trying to write for an unknown audience, without ever writing for themselves first. Often, they’re trying to tell this audience who they are by telling them everything, but books (and new friendships) require the writer to be more selective than that.
Alternatively, the beginner will write a version of themselves as main character, but while trying to show themselves as a hero, they inadvertently reveal someone blind to their own self and those around them.
The text is full of self-indulgence, excuses, contradictions, rationalisations and justifications. Actions that don’t match words, judgements contrary to the evidence, horrifying mismatches between the intended tone of a scene and its effect on the reader.
I don’t try to work with these books. It’s better for both of us if, instead, I direct the beginner to writers’ groups, to courses and books on writing, and to The Artist’s Way. I give them pretty much the same advice I provide in this article. That way, the writers who are determined, who are prepared to put in the work, can build up their skills and voice until they reach a place where they will be better able to make good use of editorial feedback and, in due course, their writing may become ready to publish.
Writing reveals you
Especially, writing reveals you to a reader sensitive to language and to nuance (as people who read widely, like editors, usually are).
When you aren’t ready to be seen, you try to hide.
When you try to hide the truth from the reader, it becomes even clearer when the emperor has no clothes.
The good news is also that writing reveals you. Because it does, it is valuable to do just by itself. Writing can be the key to knowing yourself. It can bring you peace.
Writers who do not yet know themselves are not ready for an audience, any audience. They are too vulnerable, too new, too thin-skinned, too easy to discourage, too swift to react in anger.
They need to focus on writing for themselves first. They need to build themselves up, create inner resources and fortitude. Once they can be truthful and stop trying to hide, they will be better able to write something an audience would enjoy.
Writing to publish – writing even the first draft of a first book, already assuming that one day it will be read by others, friends and strangers alike – creates a trap.
It’s impossible to start a new creative project authentically, as a beginner writer, when you’re already considering whether and how much it will please others. That way lies flat, generic writing, full of cliché, much borrowed from already-successful writers. It often causes the beginner writer to skate past or avoid difficult topics completely, perhaps because they know, deep inside, that they don’t yet have the skill or self-knowledge to tackle those harder things meaningfully.
When you’re already imagining the praise you’ll receive, or trying to defend yourself from anticipated criticism, you are thinking most of all about the audience. It would be fine to write to your audience if you already had a developed voice, a clear knowledge of what you want to say and how to say it to your ideal reader, and a robust belief in your own experience and writing skill.
Beginner writers don’t have these things – yet. They have to do more writing – and most of it will be a bit crap, that’s simply the nature of this beast – before they can get to something good.
If a beginner writer truly wants to be a published writer, they must take the steps to get there. There’s no shortcut.
The Benefits of Writing for Yourself
There are many benefits to the writer in writing for its own sake, not for an audience.
These are not monetary benefits. They’re more likely, to begin with, to be spiritual benefits. Writing honestly requires reflection, and reflecting truthfully on yourself and your past inevitably creates growth. When you have some distance from past events, you can often see them more clearly, and they become more comprehensible than is possible when you’re in the thick of them.
I often recommend starting with a tool from The Artist’s Way, the morning pages exercise. This exercise is now incredibly famous amongst artistic and creative types, not least because it really works. I have had countless conversations with authors and other publishing professionals about how much it has helped them.
It literally clears your mind and unblocks you. All the rubbish and detritus floating around in there goes down on the page, and you begin to be free of it. I periodically take it up again for a time, maybe 30 days, and there’s no other way I know to so quickly and easily find a new perspective and direction. (Maybe therapy, but the morning pages exercise is way cheaper and often faster.)
You don’t have to do the whole of The Artist’s Way course right away; you don’t even have to read the book yet – although it has become a bit of a classic for a reason. I recommend doing the entire course if you can, but if you do nothing else or want to build yourself up slowly, just do the morning pages. You will find it is much easier to progress a creative project if you start your day by clearing your mind in this fashion.
Each morning, as we face the page, we meet ourselves. The pages give us a place to vent and a place to dream. They are intended for no eyes but our own.
Julia Cameron, The Miracle of Morning Pages
As soon as you turn to writing for yourself, without an audience or the expectation of one, you will find that you can explore your true thoughts and feelings and experiences – because you are no longer inserting a filter made of other people’s expectations or judgements, or the need to present yourself in one way or another to avoid censure or garner praise. You can find out what truly matters to you. Self-discovery and emotional honesty are common by-products of writing for yourself.
Creative freedom becomes possible when you’re writing for yourself. You can experiment with ideas, structure, style. You can play! When you’re playing, there’s no fear of making a mistake or ‘getting it wrong’. Anything you do is right – because you’re playing – but out of those periods of play can come important breakthroughs in your creativity.
All this writing for yourself is also exactly the way to begin to improve your craft. You cannot expect to be a good writer straight out of the gate – you have to practise this skill, the same way you would practise any other new skill. Writing without an audience is excellent practice, and you will find your writing improves almost without you even trying.
When and how to transition to writing for an audience
When you feel ready to more formally improve your writing skills with courses and/or more books about writing, you will already have a bedrock of experience that means you are more able to see objectively where you need improvement, and how you can implement advice and feedback.
You may also, by this time, have found a writing group you enjoy, and in swapping critiques with other writers, you will become more adept at seeing what works and what doesn’t, in their work and your own. You will see what has impact, versus what bores the reader. What is relatable and engaging, versus what feels fake or forced.
Feedback from your fellow writers will help you gauge how your voice and work is improving, and when it is strong enough for you to start thinking about a wider audience. You will be better able to refine your work to reach that audience that needs or wants to read it.
Most of all, you will have the gift of self-knowledge and a more realistic view of the value of your writing and your story.
You may never reach this stage, and that’s ok too. You may find that writing for yourself is truly its own reward, and you are no longer so interested in seeking to enter the notoriously fickle and competitive world of publishing.
Or, you might conclude that your story is now finally ready to be told to the wider world, and so then you might seek professional input to refine and improve the work. That will be the time to come to me or one of my colleagues, with a view to seeking an agent, a publisher, or deciding to self-publish.
The Value of Writing for Yourself
The most impactful work usually begins with a deeply personal process, and developing that process takes time.
Writers who are ‘overnight successes’? Writers who knock out a book a year? They’ve been writing for years by themselves before they got an article or short story or a book published. This is going to take time and dedication. One step at a time. Don’t rush.
Try to enjoy the journey. Along the way, your focus on self-exploration and truthfulness will expand your character in totally unforeseen ways. Your writing will become more meaningful, and in due course, it will become closer to publishable.
When the time is right, you will present to the world – if you choose – a book that connects as deeply with its audience as you are now connected with yourself.
