Serendipity

Last week I talked about what it takes to build a career as a writer.

I discussed the importance of setting a writing schedule and keeping it.

I said that it is essential to learn to revise and to get the kind of input that tells you what kinds of revisions will be useful.

And then I marched straight on into the deepest secret of every successful writer . . . serendipity.

No writing career gets very far without it.

My serendipity came about in 1987 when my novel of the year before, On My Honor, won a Newbery Honor award. That happened nearly fifteen years after I moved my writing from a guilty hobby to a fulltime job, and eleven years after Shelter from the Wind, my first novel, was published. During those fifteen years I worked hard and constantly. In fact, the main complaint I heard from my children when they were growing up was that I was always writing. But despite that hard work and despite publishing six novels prior to On My Honor, I never once, in all that time, came close to earning enough money to live on.

Receiving an award of that stature does more than change one’s immediate cash flow. It opens doors. It puts a stamp of approval on a career for years to come. And that's what I mean by serendipity. There had to have been dozens of other books out that year that were equally deserving of such notice, but mine happened to catch the right attention at the right time and I was able to move forward into my career with a new authority.

Coincidentally, that was also the moment in my life for a much less serendipitous though necessary event. I left my marriage of twenty-eight years. But I left with the deep knowledge that my newly successful writing career was one of the gifts from the man who had for so long provided a roof for my typewriters and for me and our children and various foster children and exchange students and cats and dogs and hamsters. And I will always be grateful for the generosity with which he made my career possible.

Not everyone has the privilege of being provided for, however, while trying to get established. And not everyone will have a serendipitous moment of being lifted out of the pack. What do you do then?

Just keep writing because you love to write and keep slogging at the unglamorously hard work. One doesn't exclude the other. They can live side by side.

What further tricks I know for keeping a career alive I'll talk about next week.