What Writers Have in Common with Mick Jagger
No, it’s not the moves. It’s not the legions of screaming fans (well, unless maybe your name is JK or Suzanne or Stephen). It’s this: much like Mick, writers cain’t get no satisfaction. How do I know? ‘Cause I’ve tried…and I’ve triiiiied.
Many years ago, I saw my name in print on a byline for the first time. It was a regional magazine, and they paid me a whole $35.00 for an essay I wrote. I was thrilled. I even made a color copy of the check so I could keep it forever. It’s…somewhere.
After that, I started wondering if I could get a byline in a national magazine. Then I’ll really be a writer, I thought. So I did. And it was an awesome feeling. For a little while.
Then, I thought, if I could just get my own column…now that would be something. So I did, and I was beyond thrilled. But then I thought…if I could just publish a novel….
Then I thought, what if I could get a fiction series? And one day I asked myself, Woman, are you ever going to be satisfied?! And the answer was no.
I wondered if I just suffered from a personality problem. Maybe I was just a malcontent. So I asked other writers if they felt the same way. And guess what? They do. Here are the results of my informal poll…the thoughts of a highly eclectic group of successful writers I know who chimed in on the subject:
Amy Feezor was formerly the copy director for Real Simple magazine. Now she writes books with celebrities and has a successful blog and oh, you know, lives in Paris for the better part of a year. No big whoop. Here’s what Amy said about writing satisfaction: I don’t ever anticipate feeling accomplished. There’s always going to be a story trying to make its way out of my brain. (I mean, I HOPE there is…)
Or maybe…I just feel accomplished actually BEING a working writer. Not everyone can say they can support themselves doing what we do. Asked if she ever wants to just rest on her laurels, Amy responded, MAYBE for a day. Sometimes it’s the process that’s the delightful part, not the end result.
Tess Forte is one of my favorite writers whose names you may not know. You know those advertorials in magazines and online that read like real articles because they’re actually really helpful and fun to read? There’s a good chance Tess wrote them. Tess has this amazing, breezy style that makes everything feel fun and fresh and fabulous, so she gets hired a lot to make products more interesting (for about a full year, I think it was, she got paid to blog about a coffee creamer and actually managed to make it sound more like a cool friend’s blog than an ad). Tess’s voice lands her lots of wonderful gigs, and it’s that variety and the challenge of something new that makes the work fun for her: There are times when I tackle something totally new and outside my comfort zone, and when I succeed I am proud and feel accomplished for about a day. But then it’s on to the next thing. Sitting on my laurels would never occur to me. Also I think if you are super creative, your mind is always working, twisting, thinking where to go next. I can’t even stop myself sometimes from working ideas out in my head. I don’t think I could ever be done because my mind will always be working. But these moments of accomplishment, however fleeting, do add to my overall CONFIDENCE. I think confidence is more significant than accomplishment. Once I tackle a big challenge, the feeling of accomplishment may be short lived, but it goes a long way towards my long-term confidence. I find myself thinking, “If I could do THAT, I could do anything!”
Julie Garmon is an inspirational writer for several magazines and book series who works from a loft in a log cabin in the woods of Georgia (join me in envy for a moment, won’t you?) and has been a regular contributor to the popular devotional book Daily Guideposts since 2003. Julie says, Maybe I live with brief moments of satisfaction, but no, I wouldn’t say I’m completely satisfied with my writing. Should we be? Do we ever get to the place where we feel like we’re “good enough?” I’ll let you know if I ever get there.
Leslie Gornstein, aka The Fame Fatale, is a Los Angeles-based freelance entertainment writer and reporter. Her work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, The Los Angeles Times, and the New York Post. She also had her own column on E! online for nearly ten years. On top of that, she’s the author of two hilarious-yet-highly-informative books on celebrity culture, most recently The Celebrity Playbook: An Insider’s Guide to Living Like a Star. While most of us would think Leslie has a pretty glamorous career, she, too, suffers from Mick’s lack-of-satisfaction syndrome: I’m at the point where, if I got one of my novels published AT ALL I would throw myself a party. AT ALL. That said, my real goal is to be able to develop a small income stream from selling novels. When that happens I’ll actually let myself feel a little proud. Yes, I’ve published two non-fiction books, but, for whatever reason, meh, not that proud. (Well, Leslie, we are proud FOR you!)
Melanie Dickerson is a highly successful author of Christian fiction who has sold lots o’ books and won beaucoup awards. (Her novels are published by a little company you may have heard of called Zondervan.) But is Melanie satisfied? Perish the thought! Says Melanie, I think it’s the nature of writing endeavor that you never really feel like you’ve “arrived.” There’s always more to accomplish. Although I am extremely grateful and happy about what I’ve done so far, there is so much more I want to do–not to mention that I need to make money and get my kids through college! I think if I had achieved the amount of success Nora Roberts or Stephen King have achieved, then I might decide to retire….But isn’t it interesting that Stephen King and Nora Roberts and J.K. Rowling have NOT retired? It makes you wonder what more they hope to accomplish. I think a writer just cannot stop writing. We love it.
So there you have it, folks. The consensus is that writers are pretty much word junkies continually seeking our next fix. We don’t know the meaning of the word satisfaction. Well, of course we know the meaning…after all, we’re writers…but knowing the meaning is a whole other matter than feeling it in our bones. Like Melanie said, we can’t stop. We love it.
