It’s no trade secret that finding success, especially the financial kind, as a writer is one of the longest shots that can be taken in a profession. The role of old-fashioned good luck shouldn’t be discounted…. should it? The vast majority of us aren’t going to become bestsellers. Instead, we’ll spend our writing careers scribbling into the void, to varying degrees. As Metallica so musically put it, sad but true.
Success in writing depends on a lot of things. You need at least a modicum of talent. The will and desire to put the talent you have to work, and to bolster it with skill-building helps, too. And the tenacity to keep going, even when maybe the only person reading your work is you. Another less-fortunate part of the success formula is market timing, and your work “fitting” with notoriously fickle tastes and trends. And. last but not least, the element that brings me to the keyboard on this subject in the month of March… it takes luck.
Lucky Break? Or Something Else?
You may think that you either have the kind of luck to be successful in your ventures, or not. Luck, for you, might just be part of the landscape, rather than something that can be cultivated, courted, or manipulated.
Luckily (see what I did there?), luck is a lot less furniture and a lot more skill and practice. What looks like a lucky turn of fate from the outside is far more often the outcome of protracted and tenacious effort toward the goal. And that is something that we all can strive toward. In that way, we have some control over our luck.
“Luck is not chance – it’s Toil – Fortune’s expensive smile Is earned – “
Emily Dickinson
Taking Control of Luck
If luck is something that we can earn, at least to some degree, how do we go about it? How can we make our own good luck as emerging writers?
No Raw Talent
Think as I can, I cannot come up with one “lucky” household-name author whose debut release was the first thing they’ve ever written and sent out into the world. The ones I might be able to make a case for most certainly did not have their works published in their initial incarnations.
Even raw talents on a genius level need practice. There are people who just have an aptitude for weaving a story, who understand plots intuitively. But no intuition is enough to knock the ball out of the park on the first ever effort. I’m no genius-level talent, not by a long shot. I personally have something like half a dozen novel-length manuscripts in the bag, for which I have never sought publication. Maybe I will someday, after a lot of revision. But all of them were incredible practice that made me a better writer and helped me improve my craft.
The Power of Production
It is sometimes said that behind every overnight success is ten years of hard, grinding work. The concept seems to hold across professions, artistic specialties, even in domains of science. The fact that you are you, staring at this screen and reading words, are the present culmination of millennia of biological and sociological and technological trial and error, and occasional runaway successes.
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The lesson in all of this for we writers and artists is to err on the side of production. Keep writing, keep telling stories. The odds of any individual piece finding critical or commercial success are slim to the point of absurdity. But by producing, hyper-producing if we can, we increase the odds that some part of our work might gain a toehold.
Game Your Strengths
A few years back, my employer at the time brought in a cultural consultant to assist in leveling-up the management team and improving culture and engagement within the company. One very interesting thing that I took away from the experience was the idea of recognizing and leaning hard into your individual strengths, rather than pushing back against your weaknesses.
Ever writer has strengths and weaknesses. Some of us live for building believable worlds of incredibly realistic depth, down to the conjugation rules of our gnommish. Others have a gift for writing dialog and channeling their characters’ unique voices. Still others are masters of plot structure.
I’m not trying to suggest that we completely ignore the weak areas in our skill… A successful story does, more or less, need it all. But do recognize when a weaker skill is “good enough” that it doesn’t detract from the shine of a skill that you are gifted in. Or, find ways to work around your weaknesses rather than slog through them. For example, there are tons of questionnaires online to help you fill in the gaps of your worldbuilding, if that isn’t intuitive to you. Then, move on to creating that engrossing dialog that comes so naturally to you.
Recognizing When Luck Finds Us
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Because so much of what looks like good luck from the outside has so much happening behind the scenes, it can be hard to tell from the inside how lucky we seem. Keeping some perspective is important, and healthy. When everything comes together in an acceptance, or a full request, or landing an agent, recognize the moment of good luck. But also tip a hat to yourself; that luck was more your own making than you probably give yourself credit for.
What do you think?
How much control do writers have over the success destinies of their work? Is it all really down to fickle, elusive quirks of the Matrix? Or is what we give of ourselves to the process a crucial ingredient in successfully courting publication luck? I’d love to know what you think about this one!
If you liked this post, you may also enjoy this one on finding validation in, and for, your writing. Sometimes the process of making luck seems long, slow, and pointless, like our work isn’t worth the effort that we’re putting in. But, there’s a healthier and more fun place to find the validation that you’re looking for until all that luck you’re creating matures.
Until next time, I hope you’re enjoying an Irish coffee, some tasty boiled dinner, and finding the luck of the Irish this St. Patrick’s day. Until next time, may the Muse be with you!
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