What if your writing could really help someone?

This week I became aware of a project from fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson: a “challenge coin” offered freely to anyone struggling with depression, that a,  is a beautiful collectible item and b, contains a QR code link to resources to help people with mental health issues.

(You can find out more here. If you are someone who deals with depression, you can get the coin for free. If you just like Brandon Sanderson and want to support his work—or collect All The Things—you can buy a coin there, too. There is no ‘test’. You are invited to self-select.)

The Arts As Their Own Reward? Yes, and…

I’m a big fan of encouraging people to write for it’s own sake: for the rewards you get from the process.

But that doesn’t mean I think you’re somehow ‘selling out’ if you want to make a living from your craft. 

In fact, if that’s your path, I hope you make a fortune from your writing.

I think writers are exactly the kind of people who should be successful and rich.

Brandon Sanderson is an example of how that success can look, in the hands of someone who spends all their time thinking hard about what makes humans tick (i.e. a writer).

Do The Work

Dreams of fame and fortune, and all the good you’ll do with them, are lovely, and can be inspiring in the tough times, when you’re starting at the fourth revision of a manuscript, wondering if you’re making it better or worse.

But you still have to do the work. 

Sanderson didn’t become rich and successful on the strength of having written one book. He writes a LOT. Obsessively, in fact. 

You do not have to write obsessively in order to become successful–there are plenty of examples of people who have a slightly more balanced approach and still do fine–but you do have to write.

• Actually-Writing,
• Really-Revising,
• Courageously-Engaging with the publishing industry/readers,

These must be serious activities for you, if you want success as a writer.

Don’t Go It Alone

Another lesson from Sanderson that I’ve noticed over the years is that he doesn’t try to do it alone. 

• He worked to develop his own style, but then he went to conferences to learn the business.
• He formed a podcast with other writers, to share what they knew with the community of writer-admirers. 
• He formed a company to deal the the growing business demands of being a prolific and successful author.
• In his announcement about the challenge coins I noticed a lot of ‘we’ language.
• He came up with the idea, but it was clear that there’s a team behind him coming up with smart ideas (like: what should go into the resource page; what to do about the tension between their desire to give them away to people who need them and also satisfy people who just wanted the coins because they’re collectors…)

The myth of the solitary writers is just that…a myth.

The only stories about solitary writers I can think of are stories that don’t end happily. Any successful, modern author’s ‘acknowledgments’ section runs to several pages.

How We Do It

Here in StoryADay-land, we get together to write every May: taking on a huge, ridiculous challenge, just to see what we’re made of. We post about our successes and our less-than-successes. We share and commiserate.

And we do workshops and hangout and co-working writing dates together, because doing this together is just way more fun. And more sustainable.

I hope you have a supportive community of writers around you.

And if not, keep your eye on your inbox for an invitation to join us for an end-of-year get together for the StoryADay community, that will also help you plan for a 2026 you can be excited about.

A Fun Thought Experiment

What would you do with your fame and fortune if you made it big? Leave a comment and let us know!

Keep writing,

Julie

P. S. Need more practice turning everyday moments into key scenes in your stories? Consider the StoryAWeek newsletter: 52 weekly lessons and writing prompts. Find out more.

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In his 2003 Nobel Prize Banquet speech, honoree and author J. M. Coetzee used his moment on the stage to reflect on what a shame it was his parents hadn’t lived to see this day: 

“Why must our mothers be ninety-nine and long in the grave before we can come running home with the prize that will make up for all the trouble we have been to them?”

-J. M. Coetzee – Banquet speech. NobelPrize.org.

I thought this was an odd, and dispiriting way to thank the Nobel committee. 

Perhaps it struck me because I lost my dad in the summer and am going through the process of getting used to not being able to tell him things and see the reaction on his face.

But what I know in my bones is that, though he would have been tickled pink by my current and future achievements, his pride in me was based on who I am, not any big outcome, or prize. (And yes, I know I was privileged to have pretty awesome parents.)

It’s Not The Prizes

It’s not the big moments that make up a life—or a writing practice.

It’s the millions of tiny decisions and actions we take, day after day, that tell people who we are, and that add up to a life.

• It doesn’t matter if your writing goes well today. It matters that you did it.
• It doesn’t matter if you wrote 5,000 words today. It matters that  you come back and add more words, soon.
• It doesn’t matter if your first draft is ropey. It matters that you finish; that you summon up the courage to revise it, and revise it again; that you decide you are bold enough to share it.
• It doesn’t matter if your writing is ‘on trend’. It matters that you spend your time working on something that delights you—even as it frustrates you; something that only you could write.

Who Tells Your Story?

After playwright Tom Stoppard died this month, a widely-shared letter appeared in the UK newspaper The Times. 

In the letter, surgeon and cancer researcher Dr. Michael Baum recounts how, while attending a performance of Stoppard’s play Arcadia, he was introduced to Chaos Theory, which changed his thought process about a thorny problem in treating breast cancer. He ends the letter,

“Stoppard never learnt how many lives he saved by writing Arcadia.”

Prizes are nice.

Publication acceptances are nice.

Being able to make some money from your writing may, or may not be, nice depending on how you feel about turning your avocation into a job.

But writing is weird.

It’s a way to place our ideas into the heads of people we’ll never meet. 

It’s a method for manipulating the emotions of people in a future we might not see.

It’s a stone cast into a vast pond, causing ripples we can’t possibly track.

The Point

The work is the point.

The work is the starting point.

We might never receive the prizes, the publication, or the acclaim, but we can certainly never receive them if we don’t build the habit of doing the work. 

And doing the work has to matter enough to you that you would do it even if you never hear that your parents are proud of you or that you saved lives with your writing. 

You may never know what you writing means to other people.

What does your writing mean to you, and can you find a way to make that ‘enough’?

Keep writing,

Julie

P. S. Need more practice turning everyday moments into key scenes in your stories? Consider the StoryAWeek newsletter: 52 weekly lessons and writing prompts. Find out more.