An absence of wings

I’ve spent a lot of years working with dreams, and putting a lot of time and energy into trying to make a viable living from inventing stories. In that time, I’ve watched Mark Lawrence go from unknown to best seller – and rightly so, the man is brilliant. I’ve watched Professor Elemental become a huge international phenomenon, and I think he’s set to go a lot further. I’ve watched lovely folk at Moon Books sell vast numbers of books. I’ve watched Natalie Dae emerge from the obscurity of ebook land to a Harper Collins deal, and my own lovely bloke has signed a contract with Penguin.

There is no certain formula for creative success. However, those who truly fly tend to balance the familiar and the original in just the right way, creating something that an audience is both pleasantly surprised by, but readily able to engage with. It is a fine balance to strike. It takes a certain amount of luck to tap in, ahead of the next zeitgeist, and create something which will flow with that. It also takes a great deal of canniness and skill, and there are those who do it consciously and deliberately. All kudos to them.

What most creative people do, if they are to succeed, is believe in their own vision and keep slogging away at it. There are two outcomes available. You might be successful, eventually, and be able to earn enough to live on. You might not and either what you’ve got is a hobby, or a problem, depending on how you relate to it. For many people, creativity as a hobby is a perfectly reasonable place to be. However, if a lot of your motivation for creativity revolves around a need to share with other people, then not having very many people to share it with, can leave it all feeling a bit pointless. What, after all is the point of pouring months of work into a novel nobody reads?

There are some who will hit this wall and decide the problem is everyone else. Publishers aren’t supportive enough, readers aren’t perceptive and appreciative enough, but I don’t buy that at all. Not least because I’ve watched some utterly fantastic people find their audience and I know that great work can and does thrive. So, frequently, does rather more banal work with a spin off movie or TV series, but it is certainly not the case that great creative work can’t get an audience.

One of the hardest things to face in any context, is the possibility of ‘I may be the problem here’. It’s as true in our emotional lives as in our work. When relationships go wrong, when families fall apart, and necessary things fail, the one thing none of us really wants to do is look at whether we actually caused that, with words, or deeds, or insufficiencies. I suspect a certain degree of denial over our shortcomings is only human, and in moderation no great problem. But when the same things keep going wrong, and you are the common factor, there comes a time of having to say “it may be me.”

I’ve got great publishers. I get to work with some brilliant and talented people. In this regard I have been ridiculously lucky. I’m watching people around me fly, and I’m failing to grow wings. There comes a morning when you wake up and realise that the only reason you get to play tambourine in the band is because you are sleeping with the lead guitar player, not because anyone has any actual use for a tambourine. It is a hard thing to get to grips with.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about issues of worth and value – reflected in posts here. I’ve been thinking about it a lot because I’m increasingly questioning my own use and value, and asking if there is any point to the things I do. I know some people value this blog, which is a reason for keeping that going, and I’ve promised Tom I’ll see Hopeless through to the end. There is a book about prayer out there in production, and a novel co-written with Professor Elemental on the way for this summer. And perhaps that should be it. Time to lay down the pen and admit that it was a very nice idea, and that it didn’t work. Time to start looking for a proper job and finding something of more use and value to be doing for the world. Many of us leap towards the stars. A few who leap, will soar. Many of us are destined to land awkwardly and achieve nothing of note. How many times can you throw yourself onto the floor, before it becomes reasonable to admit that you have no wings?

More than anything else, I want to feel useful. I want to apply for some kind of normal job and have someone tell me that I am worth employing, worth paying a living wage to, that I don’t have to work all the hours there are in order to scrape along the bottom. My child deserves better. The people around me deserve better. I am acutely aware of having let down people who believed in me and who imagined I might do something worthwhile. Maybe there is still scope for me to do that by some other means in this life. I can only hope so.