You never get a ‘skilled break’, do you?
I remember reading recently someone famous (an author, comedian, musician – I can’t recall) talking about how they made it big. They were recounting their lucky break, and mentioned that it’s funny how it’s referred to as their lucky break, considering they had to work hard for several years to get it.
This got me thinking. In my journey towards becoming an author, am I waiting for my hard work to pay off, or for my luck to change?
Why it’s all about hard work
There’s a quote that goes along the lines of ‘There’s a word for a writer who doesn’t give up. Published.’ I like it, because it implies that how hard you work makes a difference. Which is the right way for things to be, I’m sure you would agree. I’ve been working on my first novel since I was about fourteen. It’s changed and evolved so many times, it’s fair to say Politics in Blood is now a completely different book to the one I started writing. Plot, character, title, setting have all evolved so much, the original would be hard to recognise as the genesis of the work I hope to get published one day (one day soon, please).
Every day I would come home from school and work for an hour on the book. I learned to touch type because I was so engrossed in writing that when it grew dark outside, I couldn’t be bothered to get up to turn the lights on, so had to feel for the keys in the dark. After a while, it became easy. I thought nothing of hitting the 50,000 word mark, deciding the plot was wrong and starting from the beginning. If you add up all the drafts, I must have written somewhere between 500,000 and a million words for this one book.
I’m not saying that was hard work. Other people do the same thing on top of having jobs to go to and kids to raise. But it’s also not as if I was holding a pen next to a notepad, sneezed, and looked down to find the completed manuscript. You have to believe, as a writer, that if you work hard enough, you’ll reap the rewards. Otherwise you have to look at the fact that people don’t always get want they want, and that’ll kill you.
Some lucky people are lucky to have a lucky amount of luck
But I expect the majority of people in the world work hard to get what they want, and they don’t. You can work as hard as you like for the pound it costs to play the lottery; it won’t guarantee you will win the jackpot.
You read a lot of stories about people having the most extraordinary amounts of luck. People who trip over in the street, their manuscript falls out of their bag and skids to a halt at the feet of a bigshot in the publishing community. In picking it up for you, they see the first few lines and are hooked. A few phone calls and meetings later, they get a massive publishing deal.
Honestly, I expect there are a lot of writers out there who are not waiting for their hard work to pay off, but are waiting for their lucky break. When you read about the remarkable coincidences that get some people published, you start to think that there is no point in doing any of the hard work, as ultimately it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you run around your house backwards three times, consult a witch doctor, don’t step on the cracks in the pavement. Those are the things that will get your book published just as much as working hard, promoting yourself, getting your work out there.
A rather unsatisfying conclusion
I think it comes down to both. There’s no point tripping over in the street in front of a publisher if you haven’t done the hard work so that you actually have a manuscript written to be in your bag. If you have never bothered to write it, what’ll happen is that publisher will end up with the skin of that banana you had for lunch on their shoes. That probably won’t result in a publishing deal. No one is that lucky.
Not everyone can get what they want. Unfortunately, there are people who can’t make the grade, who can’t write well enough for their work to ever be published and widely read or acknowledged. I’m not saying I’m not one of those people, simply that it is a fact that not everyone is a good writer, or a good artist, or an amazing singer. If we all got what we wanted because we had worked hard for it, the amount of terrible books out there would be a millionfold what they are now (a topic for another post would be if you have worked so hard, should you deserve it automatically?).
Getting published is about doing the work so that when a big opportunity comes along, you are prepared to make it work for you. It’s a paradox; without the lucky break, your hard work will go to waste, but without the hard work, you won’t even notice that it is a lucky break.
So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to run backwards around my house whilst reading The Elements of Style.
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I’ve also heard comedians say it took ten years for them to become an overnight success. Basically, what the phrase really means is that they got exposure after (presumably) working hard, and, as a result, got a big opportunity a.k.a. their lucky break.
Yeah, except that if you have to work hard and wait ten years for it, is it actually a lucky break, or simply your hard work paying off? It must be incredibly annoying for people who have given everything for years to break into the industry to then be treated as though they’re ‘lucky’ to have the success that they have and that they should be constantly flaying themselves, shouting ‘I’m not worthy’.
You’ve put an image in my head of someone standing on a laboriously-built scaffold, so when that Star of Fortune streaks through the sky, they’re high enough to catch it. Don’t get caught on the asphalt with nothing but a banana, kids! (Heh, heh — I love a moral that makes no sense out of context.)
Now I have control of your mind! I agree; in fact, any kind of quote that you say in a social situation and everyone just looks at you like ‘?????’.
If running around my house would work I would do it. This one is getting re-blogged.
I’ve been feeling this way all weekend – since Friday. Another rejection email (tired of wasting money on SASE’s) and a lost job opportunity.
I keep wondering myself, is it a lucky break that I need, better writing, or am I just barking up the wrong tree. Maybe I’m supposed to be creative in other places.
Thanks for the post. Nice to see someone else thinking like me.
Thanks
Sorry to hear about the bad times. The rejections are just what you have to work through to get to the good stuff. How hollow would everyone’s success feel if we just woke up one day as a bestselling author? I know people who try to argue, but I reckon after a while most people would realise that it’s the hard work in getting to the destination that makes what is there so special. Keep going, otherwise one day you’ll look back and kick yourself for stopping.
Thanks for the reblog, and hope things pick up for you soon
Thanks. I hope you find your publisher. I keep being told to work on children’s books. I think it might be time to try that.
Reblogged this on longjourneysandshortroads.com and commented:
Sometimes another opinion is always nice when it comes to this writing game. Any writers reading this should check out this blog.
There is much wisdom in this post. I believe the hard work prepares us for the moment when the lucky break arrives. After all, we don’t want our manuscripts to tumble at the feet of those big publishers and have them think our novels were written by children. That being said, some of us will always have to work harder than others to get little to no reward and others will get their break with minimal effort.
Thanks
Indeed, some will have their success almost given to them, but in many ways I’m not jealous of that. Success is nothing without hard work. And thank you, I’ve just decided what today’s blog post is going to be about; that, but in more detail! 
I always say the hard times make the good ones all the sweeter and I am sure that principal applies to publishing success too. Can’t wait to read the next post now.