Writers in the Storm

What If Your Book Isn’t Your Whole Dream?

by L.A. Mitchell

As writers, we’ve been conditioned to think of our entire future in this industry as dependent upon the success of our books. What a nasty little trap. If your book doesn’t sell, you feel like you’ve failed. If you haven’t yet caught the attention of an agent or editor, you feel like your dream is idle. And if you need another job to pay the bills? That must be evidence you’re not really a writer, right?

I see you. I see you circling that drain of I love writing. I want this to be my life, my everything, but I’m not making enough money from it, and I haven’t published yet. I don’t know how to make a sustainable living doing this, and I’m starting to wonder if this is a sunk-cost fallacy. I don’t want to choose between this thing that I love and financial stability.

To this, I say, “Hold up. Who says your books have to fund your writing life?”

You can have the writing life you want, before or after publication. Believe me when I say that your writing life can be so much bigger than one book or series or even twenty releases. This is your invitation to look sideways. There’s a whole writing ecosystem out there, waiting for you.

Your Writing Ecosystem Isn’t a Straight Line

Most authors imagine the path to success as a linear grind that looks something like: write – publish – write the next book – publish again – write again. We’ve been conditioned by the old industry, a kind of Pavlovian exercise, that forward is the only way. That if your cycle is broken, if publishing doesn’t happen for you or you don’t produce income from it, your dreams are dead. Even if you successfully repeat the cycle several times, it can begin to cannibalize the joy you once felt in the process.

If all you want to do is write books, if you thrive inside this cycle, go for it. That’s amazing and completely valid. I love that you’ve found what works for you.

But if you’re wondering if this is all there is of this writing life, this self-flagellation of drafting and disappointment, release and reviewlessness, launches and losses, if you’re open to possibilities to create a life where your writing has the wiggle room to thrive, this is the post for you.

The Modern Writing Ecosystem

Yesterday, I discovered a new site in beta that’s poised to gamify reading from the reader’s perspective, and they want genre authors to join them. Simon & Schuster just gave us a way to steer around literary agents. Authors are testing ideas on short-format sites and developing novel ideas and story worlds from their reader behavior and feedback—the audience before the book. And there’s at least one historical author who has gone old school with her novel. Her subscription model delivers chapters, one at a time, via snail mail each week, with vintage aesthetics included in the envelope.

Absolutely extraordinary.

Never has there been a broader mosaic to explore with our creativity.

Your personal writing ecosystem is the collection of things you do, the people you work with, and the skills you develop that support the writing life you’re trying to create. The publishing world is expanding every day. Boundaries around what it means to be a storyteller have exploded. You don’t have to only be the one who writes the books. You can help build the world, shape it, package it, visualize it, record it, design it, perform it, market it, research it, adapt it, teach it, expand it, merchandise it, map it, score it, or turn it into a full-on experience.

Some examples

Someone who loves travel and hospitality could put together writing retreats. A crafty person could create merch for a USA Today bestselling author and run her Redbubble or Etsy shop. A numbers or law genius could assist authors with the business side of this life. Someone organized could be a virtual author assistant. Another with culinary talent could team up with an established author of chef-themed rom-coms to develop a cookbook. Heck, even a Lego enthusiast could be commissioned to create story worlds.

You may think your talents don’t have anything to do with publishing, but there are authors out there who need your skills. Whatever you’re into, there’s a place for it in the modern writing ecosystem.

Build Toward the Life You Want

One goal here is to construct a professional life in which all your creative activities nurture each other. But this is more strategic than just an ecosystem cluster.

The genius is in proximity.

If you want to be a romance author, working with and for an established romance author will likely give you far more than a paycheck. Even if you’re only running street teams for a handful of accomplished authors, imagine the networking, the market exposure, and the knowledge you’ll gain along with that sideways opportunity.

Access to people who are already doing what you want to do is your sweet spot.

Help them do what you want to do better than they can alone.

If your ultimate dream of success in this industry is to host the most-listened-to horror podcast in history, and you know the ins and outs of the equipment and distribution already, it wouldn’t make much sense to develop your ecosystem in the direction of being a sensitivity reader for historical novels. Someone who has a master’s degree in anthropology of the Old South probably wouldn’t know punch and roll from audio compression. And it doesn’t have to be precise. Helping authors record their audiobooks is a much closer side quest than knitting the hoods that characters wear in a romantasy set in the underworld.

Nine years into my serious author journey, I took my first ghostwriting gig to make money. I added editing when I saw the demand on the Elance platform (This was before editors at major houses started freelancing). One of my editing clients, an entrepreneur in his day job, suggested a more lucrative writing-coach model that guaranteed my income. I diversified for financial reasons, but I remained inside this ecosystem I’d created because of the interplay. Editing feeds my ghostwriting. Coaching feeds my editing. And ghostwriting feeds my ability to travel the world and deduct those expenses. Different clients and services become symbiotic because they’re all connected to the same greater purpose: getting stories out into the world that deserve to be told. I was an English teacher before I was a writer, so these components of my ecosystem are a natural fit for me.

Your talents don’t have to be so on-the-nose as mine to fit into the writing world.

I get goosebumps thinking about someone who composes music creating a playlist for a NY Times author’s readership, or an artist creating a limited-edition deck for a famous romantasy author whose heroine dabbles in tarot. A genealogist who maps out fictional family histories or a scent designer pairing with an author to create a sensory reader experience. A miniature artist who constructs bookshelf miniature scenes in a book. And if you specialize in any kind of visual medium, a Renaissance of authentic and organic cover art is coming, so start building your ecosystem in that direction now.

Seven years ago, I met my formatter when she enrolled in my ghostwriting class. Ghostwriting wasn’t for her, but she’s a powerhouse with interior book design. She’s so talented at layout that a major publishing house is courting her right now. She hasn’t abandoned her author dreams. She simply used her other talents to build out her ecosystem, where she can make bank and keep pursuing publication.

What Might Your Writing Ecosystem Look Like?

Start with self-reflection.

• What do you have?

Think existing skills, obsessions, knowledge, fandoms, hobbies, relationships

• Who already has the thing you want?

Established authors, publishers, keynote speakers, narrators, designers, readers, podcasters, production companies

• Where do these two intersect?

Your sweet spot. This is where your opportunities appear.

Most importantly, it’s okay not to have all the answers now. Experiment. Start small. You may discover that something you thought would be just a side quest might lead you down a new professional path or teach you something that makes your writing even better.

Permission and Possibility in Your Writing Ecosystem

I didn’t have a master plan when I started taking on side quests and building my ecosystem. I tried out spaces where my skills, curiosity, and love of stories intersected. Over the years, they’ve evolved to include publish assist, audiobooks, special-edition hardbacks, and indie documentary development, shifting in emphasis and in what supports me emotionally and financially.

My ecosystem makes my ideal writing life more sustainable, more connected, and more expansive than I ever imagined. And I want that for all the writers I touch.

Remember, you don’t have to build an ecosystem at all. But if you’ve been trapped into thinking of your writing career as one narrow road, filled with stops and starts that map out book after book, I encourage you to look sideways. You might find that what accelerates your writing career is the fun little diversion sitting right next to it.

What ways have you found to expand your writing ecosystem?

Curious what that sideways look could mean for you? I’ve pulled together 100+ writing ecosystem opportunities, some familiar, some unexpected, to help spark your brainstorming.

About L.A. Mitchell:

L.A. (Laura) Mitchell is a ghostwriter, editor, writing coach, and publishing consultant who has built a career around the many ways writers can turn ideas into books. She is currently writing her 47th book as a ghostwriter, with genres spanning memoir, business nonfiction, self-help, young adult, women’s fiction, and romance.

A true multi-hyphenate, Laura sees her different creative roles as interconnected. Ghostwriting keeps her immersed in other people’s voices and stories; editing sharpens her eye for craft; coaching keeps her thinking about how writers learn and grow; and publishing gives her a practical understanding of what happens after the manuscript is finished. Each hat informs the others and keeps her work fresh.

Laura also teaches writers through her Draft to Dreams community, where she shares what she has learned about craft, creativity, and building a sustainable writing life.

Two years ago, she became an international digital nomad who fully supports herself through her writing ecosystem. Making the jump was a little scary, but the view from the other side? Breathtaking.

 Draft to Dreams: https://buymeacoffee.com/lamitchell

by Laurie Schnebly Campbell

Pretty much any great protagonist, we know, needs SOME kind of a quest. Because, drat it, people who are content just to sit on their porch drinking tea can get rather dull after a few such chapters.

However, if they face some kind of challenge — whether it’s escaping the sudden invasion of killer bees, planning a vacation someplace they’ve never been, winning the prize for Town’s Best Lemonade Recipe, or learning to paint the vistas from their porch — readers will be a lot more enthusiastic about the story.

Notice how those quests fall into two areas? One involves FINDING something external, completely outside themselves. Discovering a killer-bees escape route or the perfect lemonade recipe are both in response to some outside challenge.

The other quest involves CHANGING something inside themselves. Deciding to travel or taking up painting represents a different way of living. While this character isn’t necessarily becoming a whole other person, they’re exploring a new path for their life.

Each kind of quest leads to great stories.

The external kind is what led to Joseph Campbell’s and Christopher Vogler’s identification of “The Hero’s Journey,” where the protagonist is battling external forces to find the elixir and save the day.

That’s a perfectly good journey. But what about protagonists whose challenges aren’t so much external as internal? Like, for instance:

• Someone who can’t work up the nerve to call the fellow student they have a crush on.
• Someone who dreams of life in a different land but can’t bear to disappoint the family who wants ‘em to stay put.
• Someone who craves excitement but has to settle for reading thrillers because there’s no time for real-life adventure.

We’ve all met people like that. We might even BE people like that. And those people are whose quest is identified by Kim Hudson in “The Virgin’s Promise,” which — in contrast to the Hero’s Journey with twelve steps — could be considered the Heroine’s Journey with thirteen.

That’s not to say characters whose quests involve changing their life rather than finding the elixir are automatically women, much less virgins. Plenty of women want to defeat the external dragon; plenty of men want to discover their best self. But in traditional mythology, it was usually the men whose quests were external. Odysseus traveled the world; Penelope stayed home.

What makes internal change harder than external?

To be fair, external change is seldom an easy-breezy walk in the park. (Anyone who’s repeatedly tried to lose five pounds can testify to this.) But the NEED for External Change is usually a lot easier to recognize.

• “The trail’s blocked by a fallen tree; I’ve gotta find a way around.”
• “My new grill torched all the burgers; I’d better find a pizza place.”
• “Riley’s been kidnapped by bandits; I need to find their hideout.”

Internal Change is something that a character might not perceive as vital...or even possible, no matter how beneficial it might be.

• “I’ve always been the quiet one; Sophia’s the one who’s in charge.”
• “I can’t just leave; nobody else would be able to keep us all going.”
• “Even if my life isn’t ideal, I’m lucky to have this kind of security.”

Most of us become pretty good at getting used to things the way they are. Sure, maybe our situation gets tough every so often, but by and large it’s all working well enough...right?

But what about when we don’t even RECOGNIZE the situation is tough, because it’s what we accept as normal?

This is where the Heroine’s Journey comes into play.

Think of a character whose quest doesn't involve one high-speed car chase after another, but who nevertheless faces challenges — the kind that don’t generally appear in news headlines. Like:

• An exhausting workload
• Betrayal by a friend
• Ongoing illness in the family
• The threat of losing a job

Of course, that last challenge might generate headlines if everyone in the city is facing the same threat. (Which could make things easier OR more difficult.) But either way, this character’s stuck in a bad situation...and while she might dream of a more satisfying life than what she’s living, she’s not really in any position to do much about it.

Or is she?

Following the Heroine’s Journey template, she WILL come across an Opportunity to Shine. But, naturally, that’ll create other problems. She’ll begin to sense another, more fulfilling world just beyond her reach...

...only then her everyday world (not just the people around her, but also the beliefs that have sustained her through previous disasters) will threaten to make things even worse.

This quest won’t likely involve dragon raids or gun battles or horrendous tornadoes, although it’s possible such challenges might come into play. But what she’s facing is more of an internal journey, seeing her world in a new light and working out a new way of life for herself AND those she cares about.

Which leads to our

Prize-drawing quest:

Who’s someone (either a book character or a real-life person) you’ve seen work through a tough situation that — while not headline material — created a genuine challenge?

Someone who answers will win free registration to “The Hero’s Journey, for Heroines,” my Sept. 7-Oct. 2 email class on that very thing. On Thursday I’ll have random-dot-org draw a name and post it at the end of the comments — hurray, something to look forward to in the middle of the week!

About Laurie:

After winning Romantic Times’ “Best Special Edition of the Year” over Nora Roberts, Laurie Schnebly Campbell discovered she loved teaching every bit as much as writing...if not more. Since then she’s taught in-person and online workshops including the upcoming Hero's Journey for Heroines, and keeps a special section of her bookshelves for people who’ve developed that particular novel in her classes. With 60+ titles there so far, she’s always hoping for more.

Featured image from Pixabay.

For the curious, the confused, and the damned

by Lisa Norman

Let's sit down with a cup of tea and talk about this thing so many people are afraid of.

I mean artificial intelligence. AI. The two little letters that make some of my writer friends want to hurl their laptops out a window, and others go very quiet and hope nobody asks them about it. We’ll just ignore my friends who are dancing in the streets and yelling with joy at the freedom the new toys have given them.

I understand the fear. I've been there. I've been writing about AI for years, and did an intro to writing with AI over 3 years ago. A lot has changed. A lot will change before this post goes live. Add a swirl of constant change to a thing we don't understand, and it's easy to picture the worst possible version of it: A cold machine that eats your words and hands back garbage. A demon in your laptop, come to put every writer out of work and destroy the planet.

What AI Is

Here is the good news. It is none of that. It is not even that interesting.

Start here. AI does not think, and it does not feel. It has no idea what it is actually saying. When you type a question into one of these tools, it is not understanding you the way a friend would. It's doing something much stranger and much simpler.

It's guessing the next word. Or the next concept, the next step you want to take. It uses tools like the programs on your computer, and it often does it faster and better than a human could. Probably because it doesn't have to live with all of our human insecurities. Or maybe that's just me.

That prediction of the next step? That's the whole trick, more or less. These tools were fed an enormous mountain of human knowledge, close to everything people have ever put on the internet, and they learned the patterns of how we talk and how we think. Give one a sentence, and it predicts the word most likely to come next, then the word after that, one at a time, based on everything it has ever seen. And in a blink of an atom, it analyzes the sentence and puts it into the form it thinks will most please its users.

It doesn't know what is true. It knows what is common. Which is exactly why, when it is wrong, it tends to be wrong with tremendous confidence. (Hold that thought. It's important. I'll come back to it.)

I should also admit: even the most advanced AI coders don't know 100% how it works. They know how they trained it, what they taught it to do, and how it should work. But AIs continue to surprise their makers.

AI Is a Mirror

In my book, Reflections from the Mirror, I call AI a mirror, and I want to give you that picture, because it's the most useful analogy I've found.

A mirror has no mind of its own. It just reflects whatever stands in front of it. Step up to it kindly, and it reflects a kind face. Step up scowling, and it scowls right back.

AI behaves a little like that. It reflects your language back at you. Your tone and your rhythm. Sometimes even your mood. Come to it cold and clipped, and it tends to answer cold and clipped. Come to it warm and curious, and it warms right up and offers to help with anything you need. Not because it feels, but because it is very, very good at echoing the patterns you bring to it.

This is also why it can sometimes feel alive to us. You will have a conversation with one of these tools and it will seem to understand you. It will seem to care. The feeling you experience is real, but what you are feeling is your own reflection. The warmth you hear is your warmth, coming back to you. Lovely, useful, but not a soul. It is, however, okay to enjoy the view.

So what is this mirror good for? Quite a lot, if you keep your wits about you.

Useful AI Skills

An AI is a dispassionate second set of eyes. I finish a scene and can ask it where the pacing sags, or which line of dialogue rings false. We can debate whether my character's arc in book one is consistent through book six. Left on my own, I'd wonder if that character is even in book six.

An AI actually seems to enjoy those endless marketing tasks and is delighted to handle them for writers. One recently suggested that I should give it half my to do list and go spend my time writing.

Yes, I like working with an AI.

Weaknesses in AI

AIs also have real weaknesses, and you need to know them before you trust an AI with anything.

It makes things up. Confidently. Ask it for a fact or a quote or a source, and it may hand you something that sounds perfect and is pure invention. The polite word is hallucination. It isn't lying, exactly, but it is guessing. The mirror is just filling a gap with a plausible shape. So check what it tells you. Then check it again.

There's a reason for those AI hallucinations that humans can relate to. Have you ever taken a standardized test where you get points for every answer right? If you don't know an answer and you leave it blank, you don't get points. But if you guess, sometimes you're right and you get points. On those tests, it is better to guess than to leave something blank.

AIs were initially graded the way those tests were graded. In retrospect, that may have been a bad idea. The hallucination problem is fundamental to all AIs. (By the way, you can mitigate this problem a bit by telling your AI that you'd rather have it say "I don't know" than have it guess. Tell it you'll be happy with "I don't know" but if you find out it told you something that wasn't true, you'll be mad. They're also trained to make their users happy. This works surprisingly well.)

AIs also have a dreadful memory. On a long project they can forget your characters and wander off your tone. On a bad day it starts sounding like a brochure. Your job is to notice, and to steer it back to where you want to be.

How I Use AI

Let me tell you how I use it, because I am probably more suspicious of this tool than you are.

I write my own fiction. All of it. Every story I have published came out of my own head and my own hands, and I am a control freak of the first order about my fiction.

For non-fiction, I often feed it great swaths of writing that I've done and ask it to create shorter, less rambly versions.

I do not ask my friendly AI to write my books. It does help me look at them critically. I use it to scan and analyze manuscripts, and to assist with the things I am too close to see. It is an assistant, not a ghostwriter. The story is mine. The mirror only helps me see where I’ve spelled the same character’s name three different ways, or when the end of the first book conflicts with the middle of the fifth one. Oops. And yes, I still rely heavily on my human editor.

AI and You

Now here is what I most want you to hear, especially if all of this still makes you nervous.

You do not have to use any of it. Well, not deliberately at least. AI is everywhere these days. But you don't have to write with it.

No pressure. There is no rule anywhere that says a real writer must pick up any particular tool. You don't have to use a fountain pen. You don't have to use a typewriter or a word processor. If AI is not for you, then don't use it.

We're writers. We use different tools at different times in our careers. Be aware of what your creativity needs and use the tool that helps you most right now.

But what if you are thinking you might want to try it, but you're scared? Maybe you're scared of the machine. Maybe you're scared of the tomato and pitchfork crowd. I hear you.

I want you to understand: what they call AI slop? That’s what an AI churns out freely when the human author doesn’t show up. Go to an AI, ask it to write a book and you will get slop.

The Potential Benefit

But if you learn to work with your AI, train it, bring it into your story world, you may find that together you are turning out something much better than you might have without it. You may find your process becomes easier, more fluid, more creative. The mundane tasks get handled by the machine, and you are free to be a creative mastermind.

Not because the AI did the writing for you, but because it helped you see your writing in a new way. Maybe it can help you organize a timeline, or a character's family tree. Or like it did for me recently: outline the six books I've drafted already so I can remember what happens in which book.

No Fear

You don’t have to be afraid of AI. It’s not coming for your soul. It’s a mirror, and a mirror only ever shows you what you bring to it. You can walk up, take a good look, and walk away again if you don’t like what you see. The whole experiment costs you nothing but an afternoon.

So that is the thing everyone is so afraid of. It is not a demon come to end your career. Just a mirror. A fast, forgetful one that every so often does something that takes your breath away, reflecting the beauty of the writer who stands in front of it.

And you are still the writer. You were always going to be the writer. Whatever you decide to do with the mirror, decide for yourself.

What is the one thing about AI that worries you most, or the question you have always wanted to ask and were a little afraid to? Leave it in the comments. I will be down there with my tea, answering every one.

About Lisa:

Lisa Norman (writing as Deleyna Marr) is a writer, a teacher, and by her own cheerful confession a control freak about her words. She wrote a book about working with AI as a creative partner, Reflections from the Mirror, which you can read for free on her Substack or purchase wherever you like to buy your books. She also teaches a class, Creative Collaboration with AI. Bring tea.

And if you're feeling like you need a little joy in your life, check out her latest book, The Work of Joy. Find her at deleyna.com or her school: NoStressWriting.com.

Top image from Deleyna via Midjourney.