Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.
The Insecure Writer’s Support Group was started by writer, Alex J. Cavanaugh aka The Blog Father. Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.
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September 1 question – 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?
The awesome co-hosts for the September 1 posting of the IWSG are Rebecca Douglass, T. Powell Coltrin @Journaling Woman, Natalie Aguirre, Karen Lynn, and C. Lee McKenzie!
We all have different ideas on what defines success. As a writer, these are my Top 4 –
1. Permission
Writing is about exposure. Giving ourselves permission to express ourselves and command an audience can be crazy-making. It’s different for everyone. I keep my eye out for what it means to each artist. For some it’s about getting traditionally published. Others, it’s receiving public feedback from readers. Like the dead beauty queen DMV-styled receptionist in Beetlejuice said, “It’s all very personal.”
Permission gives us the deep inner strength to persevere through the inevitable pitfalls. Sleeplessness. Time away from more lucrative endeavors. Guilt free demands for isolation to meet a deadline while others around you protest. The list goes on. And on. And on.
2. Finding Your Voice
It takes a lot of bad writing to get to the good stuff. We tend to imitate our favorite writers, until their voices slowly fade away as our own unique sound and expressions emerge. You know it when you got it. The eureka! moment exists.
3. Collaboration
Nothing sends a shiver up my spine like another artist reaching out to support my podcast, shorts and novel endeavors. I’ve collaborated with directors, writers, musicians and visual artists. I’ve been working on a graphic novel with an artist I respect and admire, spoken with a screenwriter and director overseas and gotten comments on articles I’ve written from authors who concur. This might seem small to others, but makes me want to pinch myself every time.
4. Vision
Getting labor out to an audience you’re confident represents your strengths and vision is no small feat. I have bad work I wish to bury forever. I’m set on throwing piles of better work on top of it. It’s a struggle. Having a path cleared and a steady pace to run it defines success for me.
How do you define success as a writer?
How right you are about success as a writer. I can relate to the one about finding your and voice and the collaborative help of other writers.
Support from others was a game changer. Their help refining work enhanced quality in ways I didn’t know could be done.
What a thoughtful blog post. I was surprised at how much authors help authors when my first book was published. Instead of being considered competitors, the writers were/are mentors. And I’m glad to pass on the help when I can.
Thank you, Rose.
Agreed. Community support is central to achieving our personal goals in addition to the goals of the community as a whole. I try to always make time for a request as others have so graciously done for me.
It’s fascinating to read everyone’s take on success, Adrienne. Your permission item is something I hadn’t thought of. Permission is one area where I’m struggling with my memoir, I realize. It’s stripping myself bare and my father bare before the world. May you throw a very big and successful pile of books on top of your earlier efforts!
Thank you, Louise. I feel your struggle, and can only imagine the highs and lows confronting you. Your blog on your life and careers is enjoyable to read. Looking forward your memoir!
You’re working on a graphic novel? Exciting! That’s a dream of mine. I hope it goes well and would definitely be interested in checking it out. 🙂
It’s been fun. Only I have these crystal clear images in my head while writing and re-reading my work. It’s a little unfair for the artist when I try to describe the desired context, feel and depth I want out of the visual rendering of it without sounding dictatorial.
I love how specific and attainable these four are. Breaking it down into small steps gets you up those steps faster!
Thanks! It’s the whole, “Look how far I’ve come.” mantra we have to keep chanting when we’re down, depressed and being assholes to ourselves. I didn’t start writing this post with the intent to break it down into four categories, but it made the most sense to me.
Support means so much. I think there is success when we gather people around us who support us and who we support.
Teresa
Agreed, Teresa. Art isn’t created in a vacuum. Cliché, but true.
I love your goals. I so agree that we have to give ourselves permission to express and must find our unique voice.
Goal posts are important.
Ooh Adrienne, your number 1 “Permission” is such a powerful selection. It really resonates with me as I feel such guilt when I take time from other things to indulge in my writing. I don’t see it as an indulgence but as a necessity, but am aware that it is perceived as one by the majority of people around me. I’ve been working on changing their view, and it’s starting to work. Thanks, I hadn’t realised how important this was to me.
Totally, Debs. People who don’t have the compulsion assume it’s easy. Then they have to write a cover letter, or complain about a presentation they need to outline for work. Ha. Writing is hard.
One guy I dated referred to my work as a “writing hobby”. That was the end of that.