What J.D. Salinger Got Right

I recently watched a documentary called "Salinger", and when it was over that sadness that always lingered after reading his stories was present in the room.

Media called Salinger hermit and recluse. Clearly he was neither of those as he was constantly seen about the small town near where he lived, took frequent trips to New York and Florida. He wasn't hermiting, he was simply trying to live out the last thread of sane left to him after surviving WWII, and then surviving the crashing success of Catcher in the Rye--the same novel that would be fingered as the reason and justification of three high profile shootings including the murder of John Lennon and the shooting of then President of the US, Ronald Reagan.

It's possible that Salinger decided to withdraw from life in public because he understood his capacity to be a dangerous man if allowed to stew too long in the soup of public pressure. Men and women hunted him down believing he had answers to their chaotic, hopeless lives. He didn't. And he knew it.

It's possible that Salinger's own writing left him with no alternative but to turn his back on the media lest he become entrapped in the same poser culture he railed against in his theology thinly disguised as fiction stories (he was a follower of Vedanta, Hindu philosophy and his stories always preached the tension between    body    and     spirit).

No doubt, Salinger walked a tightrope of being and maintaining his status as public figure and being fully dedicated to writing itself. Pure writing without any distractions.

It's murky and complicated (just like life), but there's one thing that stood out for me, one point where I believe Salinger was right: you can't talk about writing and be a writer. You must write. Only that.

There's a discipline to this, especially in the world of the internet where it is (literally) possible to glean so much information about how to write fiction that you could--in time--present college level courses on the subject and yet not be able to execute any of it.

A writer could, in theory, spend every weekend at one writer's conference after another soaking in so much knowledge he or she might feel a brain burst coming on. But so what if you can't actually do it?

I'm not against writing conferences. If you have a plan and have carefully selected workshops that will actually benefit your writing, and leave the conference with measurable ROI (return on investment), then great. Rare. But great.

But.

Nothing trumps the doing.

Write.

Read.

Write.

Read.

Don't stop.

Remember that well hashed saying that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill? My husband recently pointed out that I've passed that milestone. I am, according to the hour formula, a master writer. (Can you see me giggling right now?)

What's the singular biggest lesson those 10,000+ hours of writing have taught me?

I can't talk myself into becoming a good writer.

I can only write, and write, and write some more until I find my true self and then write that.

The Pain of Promotion

I recently read a novel by an author I’d not read before, first name Annette. I selected it late one night from the sale pages of Christianbook.com when I’d run out of things to read. The first thing that caught my attention was that it was published by NavPress, the house that published my first two novels, so I read the opening pages and was intrigued enough to order it. The novel was surprisingly good, a refreshing find, completely out of the box for CBA, which instantly made me turn back to see the publication date. Aha. It was published in 2006. In my opinion, CBA has tightened its net, so to speak, in the intervening years, and I’m not sure this book would find a home in CBA these days. For more on that, you should read Latayne's excellent post from Friday, regarding Christian Fiction.

Coincidentally, I had an interesting conversation with a longtime employee of the Christian bookstore in my little town (anyone hear Simon & Garfunkel singing?) when I took more of my books in, which they graciously sell. Lynda is very complimentary of my fiction, because she feels it is real, addresses real issues, isn't neatly tied up in the end, and shows the reader she isn't alone in her struggles. But I haven't been able to get a CBA contract since 2008, so there you are.

 Annette did a remarkable job of writing a male protagonist (we discussed writing opposite-sex characters on this blog in August). She wrote real-world characters you could truly identify with, who had goals beyond getting the girl/guy next door, and problems that look a lot like mine. Problems that don’t always have good solutions. I applauded her guts and her ability, and sent her an email saying how much I’d enjoyed the novel. Her response kind of blew me away. She gave me permission to share some of what was contained therein.

Annette is the author of 13 novels, the first published in 1997. It sold roughly 140,000 copies. The others, combined, sold about the same number. Combined or not, I was struck with Serious Envy when I read her sales numbers. I’ve never come close to that, nowhere near, though I never stop working at it.

But it was her next statement that blew me away. She wrote, “As for why I stopped writing …”

Excuse me?!?

Stopped writing?!?

With that kind of success?!?

Yes. Stopped. She had three main reasons:

First, I absolutely cannot bear promoting. I'm quite private, more so as I've gotten older. (I'm 54). I am the only person I know not on Facebook. When I began writing, promotion meant speaking a bit, doing book signings, giving out bookmarks. I did do a blog for a bit, and didn't mind that. But now...I just can't do all that is expected and needed of an author. When I weighed the pain of promoting vs the joy of writing for publication, writing did not come out on top.  I do not see how someone unwilling to promote can publish today.


Second, writing was never a calling for me. I loved it. It came easily and naturally for me, and I had a talent for it. I read a few how-to books and subscribed to Writer's Digest, but I never took a writing class. I attended my first conference after I'd had 7 books out. It wasn't something I longed for or dreamed about. I was a voracious reader, but really never thought being an author was in the realm of reality. It was an amazing surprise.

But my true calling? Hospice nursing. I've been an RN since age 20. It is what I was born to do. It is where I have served, where I have done my best work. It was easy to let writing slip away when it wasn't my only thing, or even my main thing.

“My only thing, or even my main thing.” That line really struck me. Because aside from my relationship with family and God, writing IS my main thing and has been for 27 years. No, it doesn't begin to compare to hospice nursing or any number of other professions that truly help people, but it is my passion. Aside from unforeseen circumstances, I have no intention of stopping. But I completely get what Annette is saying. Debbie also wrote a great post last week on the truth about introverts. Many writers are introverts – and some are shy, to boot, as Lori Benton pointed out. That certainly describes me. So when Annette said she couldn’t bear self-promotion, I could relate so well. And yet, as she spelled out so clearly, someone unwilling to self-promote these days won’t get far as an author.

The environment we find ourselves in as writers today is somewhat of a dichotomy. On one hand, publishing opportunities are greater---and less costly---than ever before, if one is willing to go the independent route. Now that many authors are choosing to go independent, even those who have been multi-published traditionally, the stigma of self-publication has diminished.

On the other hand, going independent means the full weight of promotion falls to the author. And for those of us---which basically is all of us---who dislike self-promotion, it makes the writing life that much harder. Building a readership is like tossing a stone into water and watching the ripple spread out from the initial splash. Turning that ripple-effect into a tsunami is the goal, but how do you do that?

Bloggers and social media participants have formed an impromptu co-op, if you will, helping promote the work of other writers along with their own, but it still creates only a small ripple in a huge pond. And all that promotional work cuts deeply into the author’s writing time. One or the other is going to suffer.

Have you found a way to balance writing with promotion, and have you found a promotional tool that’s been successful for you? Is the fear of promotional responsibilities enough to give you pause as a writer, or perhaps deter you from going independent? What, if anything, would make you put down your pen for good?