Still Grateful to be an Independent Writer

by Mike Martin, @mike54martin

I have often seen articles that talk about the best and the worst aspects of being an independent writer. Usually their central theme is that we should stop whining and be grateful that we are allowed to write at all. And I usually end up agreeing with them. That doesn’t mean that I am going to stop complaining about having to do everything myself. Insert Big Sigh here. But it does remind me that I have been given a great gift and that there is a universal truth that says whatever we are grateful for we get to keep. Therefore I am grateful to be an independent writer.

I’m grateful to be a writer at all. I was grateful when I was a freelance writer and getting paid much less than less than five cents a word to produce keywords and SEO content. I was grateful when I was a ghostwriter and speechwriter and it meant that I would write and someone else would literally get the credit. I was grateful when I sold my very first piece for $25 and decided to quit my job so that I could focus on my writing. I wasn’t grateful to be very broke and very much in debt for the next three years, but now I’m grateful to have survived that experience.

I’m grateful for all the people who have helped me along the way. Teachers who thought enough of my writing to decorate it in red ink. My partner who decided to stay with me and support me during the lean years and continues to support me and stay with me during the on-going lean years. My family members who have had to read through reams of illegible poetry as I found myself and then to buy my books and show up at events so that I had someone to talk to besides the bookstore manager.

I’m grateful for the many kind readers of my earlier work who gently pointed out that they contained ‘a few minor grammar and spelling mistakes’. I’m even more grateful for the people who saw the mistakes and pretended they weren’t there. If prodded they would admit they had seen them, but that they would add that that really didn’t take away from the story. Come to think of it I’m grateful that anybody has read my books, because that is what actually allows me to call myself a writer.

I’m grateful for editors with sharp pens and steely sharp tongues who didn’t mince words but told me the truth. Mostly, that my stuff wasn’t good enough or ready enough for publication. That I had a lot more work to do, which I didn’t know at the time, but I do now, and for which I’m grateful. I’m also grateful to the few brave souls who saw enough in me and my writing, to encourage me to keep going, even with a few extra words tacked onto a ‘that piece doesn’t work for us’ letter that I used to paper my writing room’s walls.

I’m grateful for book reviews and book reviewers. Independent writers like me live and die on your every starry pronouncement. Three stars means we can survive, four stars means we can grow, and those elusive tender little five stars that you guard so preciously, they are the path to freedom, the way to greater writing glory. Much to my surprise I am particularly grateful to one reviewer who trashed my first book, The Walker on the Cape. He didn’t have the usual complaints about weak writing, poor editing or atrocious grammar; all of which would have been true. He thought that I didn’t do enough to fully fill out the plot or enhance the character development. He thought I could do better than that.

At first I was shocked that someone could so publicly and viciously attack my baby. But after a while I realized the gift that he had given me. I was, and am, grateful for the fact that he imagined me as a writer, a real writer, with the potential to create and hone a good book. Yes, I had to do a lot more work and listen to a lot more people, but three books later I am still trying to live up to that ‘bad’ reviewer’s image of me, as a real writer. It is a goal I have now with all of my work, published or not. To make it better than before and to keep aiming to get better.

So, despite all of the marketing and distribution and social networking and editing and re-editing and then trying to get people to first look and then buy my books, I am still grateful to be an independent writer. Because that means I get to write and revel in the possibility of other people reading my books. That’s all any writer has a right to ask for. I have published books and they appear in bookstores and on people’s bookshelves, and in some places you can even get one with your library card. To me that is amazing. And worth every ounce of energy and every drop of sweat and every long night with my shoulders aching and my eyes red and blinking.

I am still grateful to be an independent writer.

Mike Martin is the author of the Sgt. Windflower Mystery series which is set in small communities on the eastern coast of Canada. His latest book, A Twist of Fortune is available here:

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