Walking the Tightrope

>I try not to think of my projects as lottery tickets because its unrealistic that I would hit it big my first time out, or even my fifth time. I write because I love writing. I'm actually all about building a career so I don't want so huge of an advance, because it would be silly for me to think I could sell out of it with no followers. Royalties are how a writer makes money, for the most part. I have no following to be comfortable enough to accept a huge advance. Having a good sales record will get me a lot farther than a huge advance.

Alright, I'm rambling… Must be the hours of typing getting to my head. The point is that I try to keep my feet on the ground. Is it so bad that I try not to hope because I don't want to be disappointed?

>I wouldn't mind a small fortune but don't really want the fame that goes along with writing a bestseller. Good sales and positive reviews would be nice–in short, I'd like enough success to keep writing my series and not feel like I'm wasting my time.

>I was just wondering what you mean when you say you are looking for manuscripts with a Christian theme. Does this mean you take religious stories only?

>Write the dream!

But realize that we still have about 16 waking hours where reality is going to hit us hard for our time and attention.

As soon as others begin picking up and even sharing the dream, then I guess we'll know we're not just sleeping anymore.

>Why aim for second place? Whether or not it is realistic I always believe that my writing will make me famous and enough money to live comfortably. I’ve held this attitude my whole life towards all of my goals and I experience my share of failures. But those failures only drive me harder the next time.

That being said, I don’t put all my eggs in one basket. Knowing that my writing will make me the next Stephen King doesn’t put food on the table!

>What a great question! I tend to error on the side of realistic. After listening to Debbie Macomber's keynote speech in September, I've really tried to let myself dream big. To think positive and to write down those "dream" goals I have for my writing career. There's something both powerful and relieving when I share these big desires with an awesome God. He knows my heart. But ultimately, His plan is best. So….I try to dream big and think positive, but lay all these things before God and hold onto the truth that His plans for my life are far better than my own.

>I'm editing at the moment so I'm letting myself dream big. It spurs me on. But I'm sure once I'm querying and receive a few rejections, I'll be happy just to have an agent, and then a publishing deal, even if it's not huge. I think it's like being a kid and imagining you'll grow up to be a movie star or an astronaut or something. You dream big, then as you get older you get more realistic and happy with what you do achieve.

>My motto in life is to dream big, but plan realistically.

For me, dreaming is fun. It also broadens my horizons, puts me out of my comfort zone, and puts zero limits on what God can do. And let me tell you, many times in my life God has surprised me and gone bigger than my dreams.

But… I also realize that God doesn't always work in the way of our dreams. (i.e. the #4 girl in my belly instead of a boy! ha!) But God always knows BEST.

I think the trick is to be realistic in your planning, but not to limit God and be a pessimist just in the name of managing expectations.

If I never had big dreams, I would have never started to write. I DO have dreams of being able to, someday, stay home with my kids and be writer/stay-at-home mom and let my husband go back to work full-time. It's a dream and a prayer really.

But I'm not going to give my resignation at my job until God gives me the go ahead either.

>It's simple, I don't limit my expectations, for that would be limiting God. If I get dissappointed in the results, then I am measuring God by human standards.

>I'll do my part of "the dream" and let God do the rest. I don't want to limit God but as many have said already, I want to keep things in proper "realistic" balance. I pray wherever the journey leads, I'll keep my focus on the Lord and his divine guidance.

Blessings,
Jim

>I feel that I need to keep myself in check all the time. Occasionally, I let myself think of the 'big dreams.' But then I realized that my goals and my dreams aren't necessarily the same. My goal is to have an agent and be published (not self-published). My dream is to be well-known and liked for my writing to the point that I don't need to hold a 9-5 job any more.
I don't want to be Stephenie Meyer or J.K. Rowling. First, their women and I'm not. But second, I want to be me. If I had that much fame, it'd probably go to my head and turn me into a jerk. Someon once asked me if I was writing "the next Harry Potter." I had to laugh and say "No, my book isn't about Harry Potter." I want my book to be known for it. Harry Potter wasn't once deemed "the next Chronicles of Narnia" or "Lord of the Rings". It's remembering that concept that keeps me in my reality. I want to be me. Not someone else.

>I leave it in God's hands. He knows my dreams and He knows my goals but in the end it's His will that matters. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11. I think that verse says it all.

>Hitting the big time scares the heck out of me! But in all honesty I have certainly had my share of Oprahesque fantasies but I truly believe that if something on the level of a Rowling happened to me that success would damage me. There is something motivating, invigorating and deeply satisfying to NEED to write because, well I am a writer and NEEDING to write because of financial concerns.

>As the old saying goes, Wish in one hand, spit in the other and see which gets full first.

>I don't go into a bookstore and place my hand where my book might be one day, as other writers have said that they do. I don't envision tens of thousands of readers. This would be regarding myself more highly than I should. At this point, I am an apprentice of a craft. That is all.

I must love the work itself. I must find my purpose in it and my joy in it and my life with God in it. If this isn't enough, I need to examine myself.

Why? Because the work is what I have been given. It is my "now." All the rest is unknown. That I will write for a few people is clear. I am doing that already. Will I write for more? I'm open to the possibility, but neither God nor publisher has promised it.

>I loved reading the comments here, and Jason, I thought yours was especially well-spoken.

This is a VERY interesting post, Rachelle.

I think an agent walks a difficult tight-rope. I think if I were an agent, I'd want my clients to be realistic. I wouldn't want to set them up for disappointment. Also, I wouldn't want them to be angry or upset with me because reality didn't meet their expectations.

On the other hand, in my life, I always support people's dreams. It's important not to limit ourselves. Who knows what we're capable of? I believe that dreams are our connection to the divine, and, as such, they should be respected and nurtured.

As for disappointment – well, so? It's just a bump in the road. It just means a dream isn't ready to come to fruition. Maybe it's the next book, or the next lifetime (if you believe in that, like I do.) Or maybe a dream needs to shift alittle – maybe the dreamer is slightly off track, and disappointment tells them: No, not that direction – this direction.

Sometimes it's the pursuit of the dream that really counts anyway.

But I think the saddest thing isn't a disappointed dream, it's a dream that was lost, cut down to size or forsaken.

So, I say, dream HUGE. Dream ENOURMOUS. Dream big, dream tall, dream wide, dream deep, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream.

>Katie answered as I would. I tend to be a realist. Debbie Macomber's address to us, encouraging us to think big, made me so uncomfortable, while at the same time opening up so many possibilities.

>There's a saying I heard while my husband was serving in the military- Plan for the worst but hope for the best. When I think about it, that has flowed over into my writing life as well. I write because I love to write and because I believe in the power of the craft. I don't depend on it though in planning out my finances our my future. If something happens with my writing it would be a beautiful unexpected gift and one that I would welcome. I dream and I hope and I would love for something of mine to be published, but know this is a tough business to enter into so don't depend on that happening.

>It's all about God. Some of my big dreams have been realized, some not. I think the ones God had for me got done. The others were of my own making, and no matter how much I wanted them, He knew they were not His choice because no doubt they would contribute to my spiritual demise.
If the Lord initiates the dream, it's worthy of our complete determination. If it's of the flesh, bag it as soon as you realize it's not His for you. Otherwise you might achieve it but to what end?
I'm with Mike Dellosso and a few of the others who placed the focus on God's dream for us.

>Oh, I have one more thing to add – because I started with the agent's perspective and then just went off into the writer's.

I'm guessing that probably the hardest part of an agent's job is that they have to disappoint people constantly.

I hope this doesn't seem presumptuous, because I'm not an agent, but I wonder if an agent has to get really good at saying to themselves: I am only one small part of any writer's journey.

If I have to disappoint an author, this doesn't mean the author failed to manifest their dream, it just didn't manifest right now, with me.

Which is okay. Being a part of someone's path – it's hard to see the long picture.

But then, that's the agent's path.

>Mira, great point! Could you email me? I think I feel a blog post coming on… based on your comment.

>I think that if you, as an agent, decide to take on someone's book (such as the one you describe), it would probably be best for you to offer your suggestions, as you have, but in the end to embrace whatever it is that is edgy that the author wants to hang on to.

Either that or tell him you're not the right agent for the project.

The author makes the same decisions, hearing your input and suggestions and opinions on his work and its sellability and then making the call.

I guess at some point all of us will be asked to change something about our work, whether it is the placing of a period or the elimination of a particular theme. The presentation of these decisions should not be offensive to us or our art. They are simply decisions that have to be made.

>Rachelle – wow, I'll ride high on that for a week! And here I was nervous about posting that. Thanks!

E-mail pending.

>Funny you should mention this today, as I work on a blog post touching on how–at age six–I insisted to anyone who would listen I was "the next Dorothy Hamill." Oh, I had the haircut, to be sure. But I couldn't get past Level 2 in lessons. (Let's just say you pass Level 2 if you learn how to stop.) Finding the balance between dreaming big and focusing on where you are is a life-long challenge. I can't say I'm any more aware of that balance now, some 30 years later, than I was then. I suppose the difference is I'm not as afraid to fall as I "go for Level 3," or 4, etc. No one masters a triple toe-loop without falling. And dreaming. Both.

>I dream BIG! I always have. I have faith that it can be done through him and with him. I was given my entire novel in an instant. There is only one explanation for that and it's certianly not because I am that great, it's because HE is that great.

I try to remember everything happens on his time not mine. That can be very dificult!

>This a tough one for me. Sometimes it's too easy to fall into the "dream big" thing and lose sight of all the hard steps along the way, and so set oneself up for disappointment…With my current WIP, I'm not so much "dreaming big," but I'm pushing myself to "write big," to take more risks, not to self-censor etc. Kind of like those ice dancers last night–the ones who took the biggest risks and weren't dancing by numbers won. They are my inspiration this week.

>My co-author and I have two books under publishing contract, and I still ask myself this question sometimes. I've been thinking about it a lot recently as I've begun seeking an agent to represent my latest novel. The thing I remind myself of is that I don't write for the big bucks. I don't write to become the next big author. I write because I believe in a story. I write because the characters claw at the inside of my brain until I have to tell their tales. I write because I have something to tell, and because I believe that something in my books might touch the lives of someone who reads them. Maybe someone who is experiencing something similar will be able to relate and find some light or hope in their own life. If something I write can help or touch someone that way, then that's what I consider hitting it big.

Ultimately, there are realistic expectations. I realize that publication is a business, and that maybe in this business, there will be no merit seen in my book. Or maybe there will be one person who reads it and says 'yes, I think this book is worth publishing.' Either way, I believe in the story, and in the end, I know I couldn't have kept it quiet. The characters were far too demanding to get out onto the page. That's how I take every story I write. Whether I'm doing it with the goal of getting it published or not, I write what's in my heart.

It's good for authors to write what they need to write, what they dream of writing. Without dreaming, we'd have no stories to tell in the first place. However, as authors, we also need to realize that there are realistic expectations in the business world of publishing. And for me, I have faith that if God has a place for my next book, it will get into the right hands at the right time. In the meantime, I'll keep working on my next novel and preparing for the publication of my co-written books.

As someone else mentioned, I imagine it must be hard as an agent to sort through the stacks of potential stories and decide what to take on at that moment. I remember reading an interview with one agent who said that the thing she hated most was having to reject authors. I can only imagine how hard that would be. As the author, it really doesn't bother me when I get a rejection letter, because I know then that it's just not the right agent/publisher for that story, so I shrug and move onto whatever is next. I don't think I'd make it as the agent, though.

Very interesting discussion topic! It's been great to read other thoughts on it.

>I think it's all on perspective and how far along you are on your journey to being where you are. Some people write small, dream small, some people write big and dream big. It's what you want out of writing and whether or not it's meant to be a career or a hobby.

I want to be a lot of things: a writer, a business owner, a counselor and even maybe the next president.

Writing to me is a release of expression, the chance to share what's in my head and craft stories of different places that I want to go to. My biggest dream is to be one day internationally known, but it's not for the money. I just take joy in the idea of seeing my work published in different languages. I'm a big linguist in the sense that I specialize in Asian languages. Cultures impact whether or not a book will fit in with their people.

I think the big thing about if you dream big, then you should know there are ups and downs. It's how you handle them as a writer and grow with everything.

Great blog. It made me remember why I started writing in the first place.

>I paid off my house last month. So now getting published is about making a positive impact before I visit the great publishing house in the sky. It's not about getting rich.

>Hi Rachelle;

The underlying question to your question is are we doing what God wants us to do? Are we acting within His purpose for us? If this is the case, walking the tightrope is easy when He is our balance. If He is truly guiding us, then He is in control of the project results, no matter how big (or little).

Glenn
glenn@sasscer.com

>This is a 'discussion' that my wife and I have all the time. It is a tricky tightrope to walk. My wife is a great woman of faith and believes wholeheartedly in God's ability to 'bless our socks off' if we risk big and trust Him. I believe that too, but I am a calculated risk taker. I like to know what the risks are, think things through, count the cost, yada, yada, yada.

Somtimes though, I think that my approach can be just as 'risky' as the one on the other end of the spectrum. I am a busy pastor who has always had it in my heart to write, and yet I can always come up with a lot of reasons why I don't have the time to write, why it's taking me so long to finish my book, why I might just forget the whole thing…I am starting to believe that I have been self-sabotaging all this time. My issue won't be dreaming too big. It will be being too realistic, if that's possible. This could be why I've never been published, along with the fact that I've never submitted anything.

Maybe I need to just trust God and go for it. I need to take the risk…to get out of the boat…to step out in faith. I preach this stuff all the time. So why can't I do it?

>Don't dream so big, they say. You'll be disappointed. Ha! What do they know? Disappointment, I can take. Not dreaming big? Now that would kill me.

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