Friday Fun is a group post from the writers of the NHWN blog. Each week, we’ll pose and answer a different, writing-related question. We hope you’ll join in by providing your answer in the comments.
QUESTION: We each have our own definition of “success.” What is yours? What would make you feel successful?
Jamie Wallace: When I think about “success,” I think about it in professional and financial terms. I do a good deal of writing today that I find fulfilling, but which only partially meets my professional or financial needs. So, to me, success is being able to make a good enough living from my writing that I can focus 100% on my writing. It’s a bit of a catch-22, isn’t it? Well, no one said my answer had to be do-able or make sense! I guess what I mean to say is this – I don’t need the call from Oprah or a national tour hitting all the morning talk shows. I don’t need to be rolling in dollars, pounds, and Gringott’s gold. I just want to be able to earn enough from my work so that I can continue to dedicate myself to that work … without having to be distracted by (or burned out by) any other work.
Susan Nye: Three things spring to mind:
1. Delighting readers and making them smile.
2. Continued joy in writing. Every day.
3. Making 100% of a decent living with my writing.
.
Julie Hennrikus: I feel like I’ve had measures of success already. I’ve finished work. I’ve gotten better at my craft. I’ve had a couple of stories published. I write on this blog. All successes. And it is so important to acknowledge them. But my dream? Holding a paperback (one of a series) in my hand. I know all about traditional publishing challenges, and about the numbers, and how tough it is. I work with theater artists, most of whom need to have portfolio careers with a variety of jobs to make a living. I am willing to live a portfolio life. But my next step in success is publishing a book. And then I will redefine what success means.
Lisa J. Jackson: Success to me is creating the life that feels right to me, and in that I feel quite satisfied. I’ve been freelancing for almost 7 years now and haven’t regretted a moment of leaving the cubical life. I love the freedom of creating my own schedule and writing and submitting what inspires me. Success to me is also finding and trying new things to challenge myself and for that I surround myself with people who inspire me to reach just a bit further. When I can make someone smile or give them inspiration or information they didn’t have before, that’s success.
Deborah Lee Luskin: To everything Lisa said above, I would add: writing the truth, regardless of how dark, unconventional, unpopular, as long as it’s real. In addition to educating, explaining and entertaining, a writer has a special function in the world, to hold up a mirror, so that readers see themselves and the world differently after putting down my book.
A successful writer is one who wakes up in the morning, gets through a productive day and goes to bed smiling.
I don’t think there’s such a thing as success in writing. If you’re unpublished, your dream is to be published; if you’re published you’d like to reach readers. If you become a bestseller, you wish you were taken more seriously. if you’re taken seriously you wish you were more widely read.
The real success in writing is to enjoy it for its own sake.
I feel that success for me, may never be the proverbial agent clamoring at my door for more, though that is not OFF my wish list by any stretch of the imagination. But to narrow it down, I feel for me, it is touching others where they are. To hear that others related to something I wrote about, is the catalyst that keeps me waking up with an idea or typing away at 2AM because I just can’t imagine not doing it!
When I had my store I carried my own card line called “Angel Talk” in it, and my husband used to joke that if you cried, I would give the card you were crying over for free. For me, it was so much more than the money or the sale of the card, it was that someone connected so much with a verse I wrote that it brought them to tears. Now that is success in my book. (No pun intended). Well, maybe just a little one!
A loaded question! It’s been a rough week so not sure I’m up for answering this one but ditto to everybody’s answers! I won’t lie – I certainly struggle with the definition of success in my own writing. Sure, I’ve had a few things published, but I’m so busy learning the craft and putzing through the baby steps that I’ve never stopped to consider when, if ever, I can call myself successful. If I am able to keep doing this – because I don’t want to do anything else – then I know I will feel fulfilled. That’s all I know, right now.
Is fulfillment the definition of success?
Or…
Is being paid money or publishing a book or writing what is true to yourself the definition?
If I think of success as all of the latter, then I am not really successful at this point, because I’d like to achieve all those goals. If I think of it as fulfillment, then I’m successful right now.
I’m not a successful writer. At best, I’m a work in progress. My definition of success has to do with never giving up. Thank goodness for my day job.
I agree with your assessment of success in writing. For me, writing something as simple as my blog makes me feel somewhat successful. So far, its been the most consistent writing I’ve done in my life. I do plan to write a few books and continue freelancing. If I’m able to to juggle those two things with the daily grind of a 9-5 job, I’d consider myself pretty fortunate.
Agreed, Jeuron; the biggest accomplishment is writing regularly….getting thoughts typed out coherently. I feel pretty damn good about that.
For me success is the moment my writing leaves the mundane and gets through to the truth.
For me success would be having a book of my stories published that delight children, or their parents, as much as I delight in Kim Lewis’s stories.
Alternatively I feel successful when I write an article that someone reads and says ” I felt as if I was there with you” as in my account of a Lourdes trip with a dying friend.
For me, the true meaning of a successful writer is seeing your imagination alive in print, whether it is physical, or digital. Somebody somewhere will discover it and fall in love just like you did.
Success? Having the guts to try!
My years of experience have taught me that if I leave GOD out, I have nothing.
Yesterday I went into the bank with a proof copy of my second novel in my hand. I said hello to a young banker who was a fan of my first story. He pointed to the book, and said, “Is that for me?” The eagerness in his voice was palpable. I was surprised, and told him that copy was destined for someone else, but I’d have a copy back on Monday, and would get it to him. You see, I’m having my readers proof the story for me. I’ve only sold about 300 copies, and maybe that will be it, but many people have told me they are excited that I have another story out. Doesn’t make me rich and famous, but I know that I have created something worthwhile. That is a measure of success. Maybe the rich and famous part will follow.
A good question.
The very idea of “success” though can send us in an unhelpful direction, I believe. We tend to gauge success by external markers- getting published, getting more readers, and so on.
When I am just writing, creating passages that feel to me true and truly put, I am in my moment, at full engagement. What comes of that writing is not so important for me. I simply seek to have as many of those kind of moments as I can.
So for me there any many truly “successful” writers out there we will never read, who will never be published. That’s sad- for us. But if those writers are at peace with themselves, they are a “success.”
Tom
Congratulations! I’ve nominated you for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award! Check it out… http://forhisgloryandpraise.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/very-inspired-blogger-award/
For me, getting a book published by a reputable publisher was the main criterion. An important milestone on the way was finding a voice that I was comfortable with and that made writing easier.
Being able to earn a good living from writing and surrounding yourself with like minded, inspiring people would be success for me.