Around the World in a Million Words

“Can I ask you something?” A friend put forth recently over a half-empty bottle of wine.

“Sure,” I responded.

“Who pays you to write?”

I promptly laughed in his face.

No one, really, is the answer – which is mostly true. From time to time, I might get paid for some writing, although that is almost exclusively backdated payment for something I’ve already written. And, likely, something I wrote without the knowledge or, at least, the guarantee that I would get paid at the end of the day. 

The most significant payment I’ve received for writing is in writing a friend’s mum’s memoirs, a draft that’s currently sitting on my laptop at well over 100,000 words (somewhere in between Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire, for visual reference). I didn’t write a single word of that book, I didn’t sit for a single research session, without already knowing I was getting paid for it. It was the most validating moment of my career as a writer – even if the phrase “my career as a writer” still, quite frankly, gives me imposter syndrome.

But, wait! I hear you cry. You published a novel. Surely you got paid?

Speakeasy launch night with some very special people.

I mean, yes – and no. At the time, being a non-agented author publishing through a small, independent press, I relied on royalties. Royalties rely on book sales – of which I had a small to moderate amount, I reckon, as these things go. Royalties, by the way, are miniscule. Royalties are why when people ask me where to buy my book, I send them anywhere but Amazon (that, and morality ethics, I suppose). Royalties are the thing that make me grind my teeth because my dad gets absolutely loads of them while I’m lucky if I make $20 in a year from them – until I remember that his royalties paid for my dental surgery and I really better stop grinding my teeth.

If I was in this industry to get paid, I’d be an idiot. I’ve been writing for around ten years, at this point, if we ignore the convoluted, hastily-scribbled stories of my early years. In the past ten years, I’ve probably written close to a million words, between short stories, novels, blog posts, and the good old internet black hole of fanfiction. 

I’m not going to dip more than a toe into the longstanding fanfiction debate but I will say this: writing fanfiction for five years made me the writer I am today. Every word you write makes you a better writer. I churned out hundreds of thousands of words in that time. I figured out what worked and what didn’t. I grew confidence. I developed my voice. 

But the absolute best thing about writing fanfiction is that people read it. People still read it. I get emails for an account I forget exists about people still commenting on those today. I didn’t become a writer to get paid. But I did become a writer, at least in part, to get read.

That’s the most challenging thing of all. Yes, the writing can be tough. And, yes, I hate editing with a passion. Editing is a soul-wrenching process of digging a knife into the guts of thing you created and rearranging them over and over again until you find the exact one way they will fit. Trying to find representation and getting published, which is where I find myself now, is mentally and emotionally draining and a true test in perseverance. 

But the hard bit is sitting around and wondering if some day, someone will actually read the damn thing. Unlike with many other arts disciplines, all the work has to be done before you even get close to that point. When an actor auditions for a role, they spend a few hours, perhaps, preparing and performing. For a writer, the however many months, or even years, you spend working on a novel has to happen before you can even start to audition it.

Arguably, the best part about publishing a book is the launch party.

I’ve been lucky in having a few people in my life who will always take the first drafts. My friend who will read everything and be wildly enthusiastic and propel me to the next draft, and the next, and on to trying to get it out there. My mother, who will be unbelievably critical and nitpick the whole thing but from whom you know any compliment is utterly genuine. My brother, who will read what he has time to but who is able to push me to a point to make me the best I can be, while still reminding me that this is a thing I can do.

At the start of November, I put the first words down on a new novel. It was terrifying. It occurred to me that I hadn’t started a novel in about four years (with the exception of the memoirs which feels like an entirely different thing). I don’t even think it was about starting, although the first lines felt shaky, at best. It was the anticipation of the scope of the project ahead of me.

I wrote my first novel in two months (it was a mess). I wrote my second novel in five months, on a deadline. I wrote my third novel over three and a half years. Admittedly, those three and a half years got sufficiently caught up in an undergraduate thesis, graduating, and emigrating to another country, but even still. Starting this novel, I couldn’t help but wonder, just how long am I going to be wrapped up in this world?

I look forward to sending this one to my mother because I know the review cannot be any worse than last time. Having read my absolute labour of love, an 80,000 word pirate adventure novel, she returned to me with just “honestly, I just hate pirates.” A friend commented recently that she loved how excited I was about my book. My reply was simple: I have to be. I couldn’t spend the time and the energy that it needs if I didn’t love it. I love my pirates. My mother did not. Some agent will.

“What are we going for here?” – “Pirate book aesthetic.” – “Got it.”

But I also love my secret society mystery that is evolving every day. I’m now over 30,000 words in (perhaps, a little over a third of what I would expect to be the final word count of a first draft) and I care about these characters. I care about what happens to them. Do I know what’s going to happen to them yet? Not at all! But I want to find out.

This month, in particular, writing this book has been pure escapism. The days are drawing darker and the winter months are look set to be particularly difficult as we handle the fluctuating ways of this pandemic. My mental health has taken a steady and significant dive. Initially, I wondered if I would struggle, or fail, to write the 50,000 words I was setting out to this month with this feeling weighing me down. If anything, it’s been the opposite. Writing this book has been the thing to keep me afloat, the hour or two in my day when I entirely switch off from the reality I’m living in, and immerse myself in someone else’s problems and mishaps. 

I don’t write for money. I suppose I don’t even write for readers. One day, if I’m lucky, those facts might change. But one thing will always be true: I write for myself.