Publishing vs. Writing

I did talk about this in my last blog post but I don't think I wrote about it very clearly.

I feel like the relationship between the writer and their published work is one of either complete blood shed or distance.  You have to stand behind your work and work hard at getting the message out, however you can (like how Julie Wilson plans to use social media to promote her new manuscript to publishers), or you rely on a formula that works for the publisher and you don't follow it, get rejected and go back to the drawing board until you tell them they're holding up 5 fingers when they're holding up 3.   In this process you lose pieces of your creativity until it dies. Sometimes you can trip over the formula and fall into it because either a) it is a top top notch piece of work or b) you've accidentally stumbled into a hot market without even realizing it.  This might be 10 years after you even write the thing and have sent it to every publisher in the world.  They might tell you that market exists, you write it, and then the market dies.  Then what happens?  Nothing!  So you have to be rocket fast or a psychic sometimes as well. 

A) I think the first thing with writing and publishing is that the relationship between you (the writer) and the writing you made has to die a bit.  It has to become a living breathing thing on its own, separate from yourself.  If it can't do this, it's a book of diary entries and no one is interested unless you've been institutionalized, a celebrity, abused, an addict, or related to someone with a better story than most.  Get yourself out of the story and get yourself out of there fast, unless you're one of those things I listed that are exceptions.  You can feel connected to it, but you have to cut the umbilical cord. 

B) Self-publishing is still rebellious and it will always be rebellious (unless, and this won't happen, small small publishing houses all over start pumping out more salesworthy content than the massive publishing houses).  There's something kind of romantic about self-publishing because it proves how strongly you feel about your idea.  The creative process is still lost in the editing process (but gained through the fact that more people who aren't you will finally understand what you're trying to say), but it's a bit more preserved in that it has seen the light more than if your manuscript has been rejected by every publisher.

C) Writing is like every other creative thing in this world, you have to fight for it to get out there.  Why do you think writers have agents?  Every creative person who has any intention of sharing their work with the world has an agent.  Why?  Because the creative world is way too hard to navigate on your own.  They're the Sherpas of the creative world.  So I think self-publishing is rebellious for that reason as well -- that you're alone and by-passing what is "logical."

D) Everyone thinks that what they have to say is worth publishing.  Gen X and Gen Y grew up thinking that they're misunderstood, so this automatically associates itself to art.  I was thinking of publishing a book with nothing in it but 2 pages of punctutation marks and sending it to publishers.  I could promote it as my philosophical frustration with the art world.  I can even copywrite it because that combination of punctuation marks has probably never been seen.  Is it a good idea?  NO!  Of course not.  It would be rejected in about 30 seconds and some small group of liberated people 85 years later may pick up a copy and talk bullshit about it, but that's about it.   Just because someone thinks that they're creative doesn't mean they should be allowed to slap their name on something that a massive company also has to put their name on.  Sorry.  It takes years of work and fighting currents and bringing something to life in order to be taken into consideration, and then it has to have a market.  And the market is getting smaller because no one reads books anymore except for children, small groups of adults, and the elderly.

An integral part of the creative process is inspiration.  If you have a great piece of work, go for it, send it to publishers.  I think it's a great idea.  If you want to market your IPP, self-publish and get your manuscript out to publishers everywhere.  It's a great opportunity!  I'm not saying CreComm's suck, because we already have been through every elimination process known to us, anyway.  It's just hard to be creative without inspiration, and it's hard to be inspired without creativity, that's all.   School running adjacent to the IPP may threaten to kill one or the other.