I don’t know about y’all, but I always liked to imagine I was in charge of myself, of my life. That while I might not have a lot of influence on global events or the future of mankind, I did have total control over my own creative faculties. If nothing else, I could write anything, and write it well.
That’s true to a certain extent, but one area it’s never worked out is when I’ve tried to write a novel solely because I think it’s the right move career-wise, or a novel that will sell. This doesn’t work out for one simple reason: Whenever I write a book because I think I’m going to sell it it, it turns out to be a really, really shitty book.
Shitty Books, I’ve Written a Few
If you’ve written more than one novel, chances are you’ve written a shitty book or two (and sometimes all it takes is one novel, sadly). It can happen at any time, for any reason—you lose purchase on the concept or the characters or the plot, and the whole thing staggers towards the finish line as a stinking mess. You finally stick a disgusted “THE END” on its ass and stuff it into some dark closet, ignoring the smell.
Sometimes it happens just because. For me—and I’m not speaking for any other writers here—it happens most often when I try to write something for reasons other than pure inspiration. The more calculated I am, the less successful the book is. The nine novels I’ve sold have all been the result of pure inspiration instead of canny marketing speculation, and the times I’ve tried to be “smart” about the book I’m writing have always turned into abject failure.
Which is frustrating. Unless you’re selling books at a brisk pace and always signing new contracts with publishers, the thought will enter your mind that maybe you need to be more calculating. After all, the last few books your wrote in a fever of inspiration didn’t sell, or your Beta Readers didn’t like it, so why not look at what’s trending and go for that, or look back at your own past successes and try to replicate them?
And maybe for some writers that works. For me, it always ends in tears. And drinking binges.