By Ann Tatlock
Reams of handwritten manuscripts fill boxes in my garage, a
testament to those long-ago days when I aspired to become a novelist. I had a
computer but believed my creativity flowed best from my brain, down my arm,
into my hand and out my pen. It was, after all, all about being creative, of
making up worlds, fashioning people from my own imagination, clothing their
lives in poetic prose.
I was on a mission to speak of beauty and truth. I wanted to share
ideas that would somehow give people insight into the purpose of their lives.
I was a dreamer. And those were grand days, filled with the great
satisfaction of writing, of loving my own words and the words of countless
others.
Of course, there was the longing to be published as well. I wanted
to succeed, to see what I’d written in print and in stock on the shelves of all
the big bookstores.
What I didn’t know was that there can be a distinct sour side to
sweet success.
Maybe, if you’re a published author, you know what I mean. As soon
as that first book comes out, you’ve entered all new terrain; a place comprised
more of numbers than of words.
Here’s how it goes. Your book comes off the press and immediately
your publisher begins to keep careful track of how many copies are sold. Amazon
andBN.com rank
you with a number that is oftentimes in the six-figures, sometimes seven,
meaning there are a million books selling better than yours.
Readers give you one, two, three, four or five stars, and there’s
a running tab of how many people rank you and a breakdown of the number of
stars given to you.
The coveted label “#1 New York Times Bestselling Book” will
forever elude you not only because you’re not a bestselling author but
because--with your book barely selling 10,000 copies in the first six
months--you are, in publisher’s terms, a mere mid-lister, a category from which
it’s nearly impossible to break out.
Royalty statements arrive without an accompanying check because
the numbers indicate that you—for all practical purposes—now owe your publisher
for having published you, even though you weren’t using a vanity press.
This same process is repeated for the next several books until
somewhere along the way the question of “What good can I do through this
story?” is twisted by an economy-driven industry to become “How many copies of
this book can I sell so that I can be on top of the heap?”
And before you know it, you’ve lost your first love, the very
thing that inspired you to write in the first place the joy of creating a good
story and sharing it with others.
While we can’t ignore the number altogether, or course, sometimes
we just need a break. That’s when I put the blinders on; shutting out the
numbers so my mind can be filled with words alone. Racehorses wear blinders so
they can run straight ahead without distraction. Maybe blinders even help them
to enjoy the run without having to worry about who’s “running faster.”
With the blinders, I’m able to get back to the joy of those
pre-published days--the simple joy of stringing words together to create
something beautiful, to share something powerful, to offer something
life-changing….even if it’s only for myself and a few other people.
As writers, we simply cannot allow numbers to destroy the
enchantment of words. Put those blinders on, and keep running.
_____________________________________________________________________
Ann Tatlock is the
author of ten novels. Her newest novel, Sweet Mercy, was
released in May 2013 from Bethany House Publishers. Her previous novel, Promises to Keep, was a 2012 Christy Award winner, was named by Booklist
Magazine as one of the top ten historical novels of the year, and is presently
being made into a feature film by Big Film Factory. Her books include Traveler’s Rest, The Returning, Every Secret Thing, Things We Once Held Dear, I’ll Watch The Moon, All The Way Home, A Place Called Morning and A Room Of My Own.
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