Writing vs. Publishing...the difference

Many thanks to all of you who have shared your opinions (both positive and negative) about my last post. I think this is a really important topic, and feedback is good.

It's gotten me to thinking, though, about something that I think a lot about but have never blogged about here:

The difference between writing and publishing.

Writing is creative. It can be fun, frustrating, exhilarating, perplexing, challenging, stimulating, and very, very satisfying.

Writing is you in a room with all of your imaginary friends, playing massive games of "what if"...

"What if Lisa and Bob get stuck in an elevator!"
"What if Mona and Mindy find out they bought the same dress!"
"What if Mr. Solomon were real and he moved in next door to me!"

Like that.

Writing is what writers do. Period. If you write, you're a writer. It doesn't matter if you're 12 or 20 or 92...if you put pen to paper or fingers to keys or whatever your method of choice is...you're a writer.

Publishing is the business of creating, distributing, and selling books. The key word in that sentence is business.

Publishing means taking the work of a few writers and crafting that work very, very carefully and then positioning it in the marketplace in a way that will hopefully appeal to as many book buyers as possible.

It's like those ACT questions that go something like all sunflowers are yellow, but not all yellow things are sunflowers.

So all writers write, but not all writers publish.

And that's okay.

In my opinion, there are three reasons why some writers are not published:



1. They don't want to be.

When I first started getting serious about writing I discovered that the local junior college had a writers' group that met once a week, so I went a couple of times.

These were very nice, interesting people, but I was the only person there who was really interested in making a living with words someday. Almost everyone else in the group was writing their life story or memoirs for their friends and family. They weren't doing it to get published. They were doing it for themselves. And that, if you ask me, is where ALL writers start.

Which brings us to number 2.



2. They just aren't ready.

Yes, this is what I was getting at with a lot of my last post. It takes a long time to be an overnight success in any business--especially this one.

Almost every writer I know wrote for years--yes, literally years--before they became published.

Me, I started my first screenplay when I was twenty. I sold my first book when I was twenty-nine.

Nine years.

Now, of course, I wasn't just writing all that time (there were college classes, and jobs, and life stuff), but that's how long I carried notebooks around with me and scribbled in my spare time.

But I'm a writer...writers write!

My job at that point was become a better writer, and it took me nine years at that job before I got my first pay day.



3. They just haven't found the right fit yet.

Publishing is a business, remember? And that means you have to have written something that an editor thinks a lot of people are going to want to lay down their hard-earned money to buy.

And that means 1. writing that something. And 2. finding that editor (and an agent, but that's another discussion).

There are a lot of amazing stories about books that were rejected by a lot of people before they found a business partner who was the right match for the project. (a little book called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone comes to mind.)

My first book was rejected by 20 agents before the 21st said yes.

Love You Kill You was rejected by several editors who just didn't think Cammie and Co. were " ________" enough. (Fill in the blank with anything from "edgy" to "believable" to "interesting" to "compelling"...you get the picture.)

So the third class of unpublished writers are people who will be...just as soon as the pieces (projects and people) fall into place.




Writing is a fun, great, and rewarding hobby.

Publishing is a challenging, stressful, and complex business.

When young people ask me whether or not they can get published at a young age, they need to understand that they're not talking to me about writing; they're asking about publishing...

They're talking about going pro.

My next door neighbors have an adorable daughter who is ten. Every day after school she spends about thirty minutes in their driveway playing basketball--dribbling, shooting, practicing bounce-passes off the garage door.

Do I think this is a good, healthy, positive thing for her to have an interest in? Absolutely.

Do I think she should try out for the NBA? Probably not.

And believe it or not, that's exactly what we're talking about.

Publishing isn't writing. Publishing is writing at a professional level with professional stakes, pressures, and consequences. And people get hurt.

So the moral of the story is this, gang: no matter how old you are, write if you're a writer. Nothing can take that away from you.

But don't say that you're only going to shoot hoops in your driveway if you think you'll go to the NBA. Shoot hoops because you love shooting hoops.

And if you do it long enough and well enough then you may have a chance to go pro someday. If you want to.


-Ally