Why Writing is a Depressing Job Before You Publish

Writing sucks.

I don't mean that as in actually writing is a miserable process. It's not. I find no greater pleasure than telling stories, recording them, transcribing the people in my head and all their actions on the page. Nothing makes me happier. I love thinking about my stories, writing my stories, etc.

The problem is that it's discouraging to consider that no one will read your stuff.

Honestly, I doubt anyone will read this. I'd be shocked if people see this status, and, even more ridiculous, if anyone cares to even glimpse at my blog. I just find it kind of discouraging to consider how little of a point this all holds beyond personal satisfaction in being able to articulate my thoughts. As such, this rambling post can hardly be considered coherent thought. If you are reading, and have read this far, please bare with me on this one.

A writer writes. The reasons vary as to why we write, but I know, personally, I want people to read my stories. I want to share my narratives. If you write for yourself, and want no one else to see, great. Kudos to you. Then you're a lot happier than I am.

However, my ambition is to see my book in the hands of many readers, and see them dive into my worlds. I don't expect to be a JK Rowling or Stephen King or Neil Gaiman. That's obscene and crazy. However, I'd love to see some sort of success. I mean, what writer doesn't?

Then, consider the amount of bookshelves in every book store--or, rather, the massive quantity of books that exist digitally on Kindle or what have you. Where will your book--my book--stand when millions of books park themselves, cover to cover, all ready to be plucked up and read. Hell, unless a book gets good word of mouth, a reader will never know they exist.

And while your book languishes, the equivalent of written fecal matter sells.

Have you ever heard of the Gor series? Probably from poor word of mouth. It's a book series that is incredibly disturbing to me. It's sexist, power fantasy trash that gives science fiction and fantasy a bad name. It sold a lot. It still sells, apparently, seeing as how the writer still publishes these books to this day. To say nothing of bad books like Fifty Shades of Gray. At least THAT book series, while awful, was marketed well, bought primarily either to make fun of it or to sexually satisfy themselves over it. The kind of people who read Gor are probably either nostalgics for an era where all fantasy novels were Weird Tales serials or sexists who enjoy the message that all women should be enslaved.

I really hate Gor.

Also, one of the books is on my bookshelves now.

The point is that these books sell. Sometimes, the awful ones sell more because they're just so awful. It's discouraging to know that you, as a writer, need to either be the very best or the very worst to be memorable to readers.

However, as I wrote this article, I found myself coming to a new conclusion. Admittedly, this rambling is therapeutic in its own right. Here's the point: in the end, everything we do is pointless. Inherently, anyway. All books fall out of print, all books disappear, and all people die. Regardless of your believes in the metaphysical, the point is that, in this material world, materials eventually decay. They rot. We view the world through a very fine, very slim lens. We see a sliver of the universe, through a tiny splinter of time.

So why is this encouraging?

Because we need to appreciate our impact on that tiny splinter. I remember books that have been lost to the winds. I remember the tiny stories that made me want to go into writing. And, every so often, I pass by a blog or Tumblr post or something insignificant that draws attention to these little somethings, which implies to me that these little somethings must be rather big somethings to draw this much of an impression.

This is a silly, probably very immature example, but, in college, one of my short stories was published in the school magazine. Silly thing, yet people came up to me to tell me that they enjoyed it. Whether they were being nice or not was irrelevant. The fact is that the presence of my story gave them some amusement on some level. That's what we, as writers, should all aspire for: some degree of joy, be it from forum posters or literary professors. We find our audience, satisfy that audience, and go from there.

Anything short of that is just depressing.