The Greatest Fiction About Fiction

A couple of days ago someone said to me "Now that the novel has sold are you still going to do non-fiction?"

Which may have been an understandable question for a civilian but the person who asked me this defines herself as a writer. She is also independently wealthy which may account for the fact she can literally afford to be unaware of the financial realities of publishing. The question still irritated me.

Of course I'm still going to do non-fiction. For one reason, I like it and find the research - which involves traveling and interviewing, i.e., leaving my house and actually talking to other people - a good counterpoint to the solitude of fiction writing. But the reason I found my friend's question astounding is that of course I'm going to continue to write non-fiction for another reason as well : the regular sale of non-fiction is the only way a writer can financially survive.

I think there's a myth out there that if you sell a book, you get a big chunk of money - or at least enough to change your life. And that does happen to a sliver of the population. It happened to two of my close friends and for a while it affected my own thinking. If selling their first novel gave them enough cash to live on for years maybe lightening will strike a third time right over my head. But rationally you have to step back and see how rare that is. Most novels sell for an advance of less than $100,000 and in fact most of them sell for a lot less than that. And most authors have spent 4-7 years writing that book. Do the math. You'd make more money working at Starbucks.

I know all this well, but my reaction to my friend's innocent question is telling. I was able to calmly respond "Yes, of course I'll keep doing the non-fiction as well. I like it. I like talking to real people." And she nodded and I smiled. Grimly. There are so many myths about writing, especially about the writing of novels. Such as....

1. All it takes is a "good idea." In fact, if you ever hear a story about anything odd happening to anybody, the person telling you this story will inevitably add "You should write this down. It would be a freakin' best seller."

2. There's something romantic, perhaps even magical, about the process. The muse lands upon your shoulder. You go into an altered state of consciousness and awaken to find 350 well-typed pages on your desk. Or, my personal favorite, your characters speak to you and tell you what they want to do. They take over the book and in essence write it themselves. (This has never happened to me. I apparently have lazy characters. They seem to clock out the minute I do.)

3. People in New York are very enthused when you tell them you have a novel. They urge you to fly up immediately so they can take you to dinner and hear all about it.

4. They then give you lots of money for it. Enough money that you end up in a Hamptons white beach house somewhat like the one where Diane Keaton lived in "Something's Got To Give." Or maybe an upscale cabin in the Vermont woods with a big hairy dog or on a houseboat in Key West. Somewhere cool, that's for sure.

5. And you write the second one in about a week and a half.


Oh well. My friend's question was innocently meant. And, as I said, I look to non-fiction and fiction to give me entirely different things, both mentally and financially. So it's hard to say why I was so irritated....

More to mull.