Welcome to our weekend conversation! This weekend’s subject was suggested by one of our readers. If you have a topic you would like to see discussed, please let me know.
Ah, literary success. It’s what we all dream about, right? Sitting on a yacht and sipping dirty martinis while editors from The New Yorker and Harper’s bicker over who gets to write your profile first, the sea below rocking with silver coins as far as the eye can see.
Right?
Well, maybe your definition of success isn’t quite like that. In fact, maybe it’s something more elusive, hard to name, un-pinpoint-able.
Perhaps you define success as simply remembering to have enough coffee in the freezer, getting the family to leave you alone for twenty minutes, not waking up with back pain so you can sit at your desk long enough to articulate a few interesting ideas, maybe even inventing fun new words such as “unpinpointable.”
My own experience leans more toward the latter.
This might sound surprising, since I talk so much about lit mags and give so much guidance on publishing in lit mags, and since you all know me as someone veritably obsessed with lit mag publishing.
The truth is, for me, publishing in lit mags has very little to do with my sense of myself as a writer.
It’s validating, of course. Having lit mag credentials sure helps if you’re applying for residencies, teaching jobs and grants.
And of course, getting published in lit mags is absolutely necessary if you want to scandalize your friends and family by sharing stories revealing what you really think about them (mwhahahaha).
But, friends, do lit mag credentials have anything to do with the daily work of writing? Does having published in a lit mag help, six months later, when you’re struggling with a new project?
I say, Yes and No.
Knowing that I have sat at my desk and faced previous periods of uncertainty, horror, drought, doubt, effort, toil and agony, and yet somehow wrangled what the kids these days call a hot mess into a viable artistic creation that went on to be read and praised by others, does naturally help.
Remember last time? You pulled it off then, and you can pull it off now! says a sweet pep-talking little voice in my head.
On the other hand, it doesn’t help at all.
That project has absolutely nothing to do with the project you’re working on now, says a crueler, typically louder, voice. Unlike that last one, this one really IS unsalvageable. Honestly, Becky. There is no list of publishing credits in the world that can save you from this…hot messy pile of horseshit.
Those voices, they can be so mean.
So, but, what then is success?
For me, the simple truth is that external rewards are great. They are important. They validate your work, boost your confidence, help grow your connections and community, can occasionally assure you that you’re on the right track with something, and feel generally awesome.
However, they are also fleeting.
As we write, we grow. We face new challenges so that what worked for one project really won’t work for another. With that growth comes all kinds of new doubts and fears. Facing those doubts and fears can be extremely hard.
Yet we do it. We don’t have a choice. As writers, we know that the only way out is through.
That, for me, is more or less how I define success: making time and space in my life to face those doubts and fears, and really truly go through them. Regularly. Daily, if I can. In order to grow, look deeper, see more, write better. In order to keep doing it, as long as I can.
Calling myself a writer, committing to being a writer. And, well, writing.
How about you?
How do you define success as a writer?
Does having publishing credentials make you feel more confident in your work?
Has getting lit mag publications changed your idea of yourself as a writer?
Do you have a clear idea in your mind about what literary success looks like? And feels like?
I worked in book publishing, as an editor (Random House, Houghton Mifflin, others), for forty years. That experience has left me with deep respect for small presses, including self-publishers, whose standards can be higher than those that a trade publisher can afford. As one result, I don’t see major publishers as the only route to validation and success for a writer (in my case, a writer of poems). Almost nobody reads poetry anyway, so I might as well use my skills, taste and experience to bring my book out as an art project, under my own imprint, and keep it in print rather than let it be buried under a trade publisher’s (as if!) seasonal avalanche of celebrity cookbooks. I am not intimidated by book publishing’s gatekeepers. I was one.
I can't deny the external measures. . . having a piece accepted. Winning an award. Still out in the future are the chapbook and then the book. But none of that can happen without the basic accomplishment of getting to the desk/the notebook and staying there long enough to make something that feels at least on the way to complete. That is the foundational success and what a deeply satisfying feeling it yields!
Success for me has been when something is used on the decision of a peer. Self-publishing isn't something I would consider a success, for me, though there is good work being done that way and I don't see myself as a snob over it.
The idea of sipping champagne on a yacht was never part of the dream. For me, to leave something behind is/was the whole point. The secret wish is to become a cult fifty years after I croak. That's 50% kidding.
(The champagne part is good, but it always tastes better when I don't have to deal with other writers telling me what they're working on).
Barring that, I'll take the fact that I left a trail of published work that reflects my voice behind me totally independent of anybody's dogma or manifesto about how it's supposed to be done or what it means.
A partial list of writers who self-published at one time or another, or even exclusively:
Margaret Atwood, William Blake, Robert Bly, Beatrix Potter, Willa Cather, e.e. cummings, T.S. Eliot, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Marcel Proust, D. H. Lawrence, Anaïs Nin, J. K. Rowling, Carl Sandburg, Gertrude Stein, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, William Butler Yeats, Kay Ryan . . .
Self-publishing (AKA independent publishing) is not at all the same thing as vanity publishing, though a common misconception holds that they are the same.
Having a manuscript accepted by a major trade publisher used to offer the advantage of wide and efficient distribution, but that’s rare now, and it has always been driven by seasonal and marketing demands. Your book is likely to be remaindered or pulped these days if it doesn’t become a best seller in the approximately 30-day window that the publisher’s bean counters give it. With luck, you might become a “midlist author.” Either way, you’ve probably signed your copyright over to a corporation that could not really care less about you or your book. Of course I hope that you will be the exception, and if big-name publication is your dream, go for it.
As for me, I had to write really terrible porn for a year to cure myself of wanting my work to please my parents, my teachers, and other approval- and validity-granting figures (and institutions). I write what I want and trust that the work will find its way, and its readers.
Richard Kostelanetz’s “The End of Intelligent Writing,” especially the first edition, describes how the most vital artistic work in US culture begins at the margins, with scant or no support from established institutions. That book was originally published in the late 1970s, but it’s more relevant than ever.
Writing can be a very lonely, isolating endeavor. It helps to have a virtual community like this one Becky has created. Commitment is hard to sustain, but I have spent a sizeable chunk of my entire adult life chained to a typewriter/computer because this effort remains the sole connection with reconciling my inner life with the larger world. Being an odd duck was and is a struggle, and I still write about that conflict, even when practically every piece I submit boomerangs back to my desk.
Being successful can take the form of being published, and I am gratified when it does. But I often have to remind myself that no one ever showed up at my door with a personal invitation to the writers' club.
Being published is undeniably an adrenaline high and a reason to celebrate on Facebook. But success for me is figuring out exactly the right words for the situation and having someone else notice. “That’s it, that’s exactly what it is like,“ they will say, and I know I have done my job.
well for me, it's simple. I want to hold a real book in my hand with my name on the cover. Not one self published by me either, Random House maybe. That's it.
Writing well, enticing readers to read on, root for your characters, care about them. I feel best when a reader tells me he or she connected, AND that my words moved them. I aim always for less is more, treating the editing process as important as the creating end.
To me, success is never giving up. To paraphrase science fiction writer (although he hated to be labeled ) Harlan Ellison: "The secret to being a writer is not becoming a writer, but STAYING a writer. Writing day in and day out, never giving up, until a publishable body of work is done. "
Sep 10, 2022·edited Sep 10, 2022Liked by Becky Tuch
I'm not going to lie, the yacht and the sparkling silver coins of the water sound pretty good right about now. I don't even need the magazines to be arguing over me. Just so long as the maritime cops aren't on their way to throw me off a stolen yacht. (In seriousness though, for me I think it means paying the bills and the respect of my peers.)
In writing, there's a cycle. Reading; talking about writing, especially with fellow writers; digging deep to talk to yourself and put good words on paper; reaching out to readers. Because the art of words is all about communication. When all these parts of the cycle are working, it's very satisfying. I belong to a writing group and take workshops from time to time. Some people scorn this, but I think that's a mistake. Writing is about intimacy, whether with yourself or others. Listening is just as important as having a voice. Taking criticism is just as important as giving it, especially with the awareness of stimulation, or challenge, and in the context of mental intimacy. Let's say, getting triggered to write. Didn't Anne Sexton say writing was better than sex? We writers are in love with writing...and love has swings of emotion...We are all trying to settle down into (another quote alert)--a marriage of true minds.
Becky, being published in Lit Mags to me means success because it means I stay connected with my daily writing effort. I may submit the same kinds of poems, over and over, and this does not mean I'm improving. I may or may not be improving. But continuing to write means success to me, with or without publication, with or without public recognition. If my work is published it's a small indication to me that my work may be somehow worthy. Writing reviews, on the other hand, has become slightly stale to me. (I've published over 75 reviews.) Either I need to stop reviewing, or I need a break from it because I noticed I'm not reading as attentively as I used to. When the imagination drops, to me that's a signal to either rest a while, or switch to another genre. This, and publication, has kept me going, in spite of the fact that levels of enthusiasm within me rise and drop. So many comments here gave me new courage: not being afraid of the gatekeeper, pursuing your own style / voice without letting anyone dictate how it's supposed to be done, drafting a collection as an art project, perhaps even a labor of love, without regard to earnings, etc. and not letting trade publishers dictate.
Success for me is not the dude on the dolphin. If anything it's the dogged dolphin itself, soldiering---or sailoring-- on despite the off-key yowlings of the guy I've got. Sometimes I'd like to dump him, but he's the only writer I've got. Otherwise I'm very much in accord with you, Becky: publishing and confirmation are great, but out there in the ocean there's nobody much around to cheer or even jeer, so I've got to keep going.
Sep 11, 2022·edited Sep 11, 2022Liked by Becky Tuch
For me, the first level of success as a writer=writing. So many people dream of becoming writers, yet never actually write for whatever reason(s). I keep this standard of mine low, and am therefore never disappointed. I write, so boom, success! Additional bonuses: delightful aha moments during writing, that satisfying click of finishing a piece, other people reading and even liking my work, publication, awards and accolades...but to quote a recent Morgan Talty tweet, "The only absolute writing process that exists is the one where you write."
I've always been chasing the high I got winning school-wide writing awards (with first drafts!) as a kid. I assumed I'd be a famous writer by now, but the petty criticisms I encountered in undergrad writing workshops and lack of awards in college made me stop writing for years (as well as skipping an MFA). It's so hard to write without the benefit of external validation.
I almost passed by this conversation, thinking I really could not afford the time away from an article due in a few days that seems beyond my ability to do well. But I looked at it anyway, maybe because anything is better than trying to work when the work isn't working. And then I read: "Knowing that I have . . . faced previous periods of uncertainty, etc… and yet wrangled . . . a hot mess into a viable . . . creation. . . . & Remember last time? You pulled it off then, & you can pull it off now!" So when I looked at it anyway, what I found was a gift. A truth. Thank you, Becky!
I read a lot of poetry, books & literary reviews & I write. As years of study & writing go by, I've improved. However, chances of getting a book published look slim, but I'm determined to accomplish this. It's not exactly a fun project, but I push on.
Furiously agreeing with most of what you and others have said, Becky, but for me you nailed it with 'a viable artistic creation that went on to be read and praised by others, does naturally help.' Obviously, first comes the wrangling of the writing, then sending off your work to be spanked or cuddled in the seemingly random world of lit mags and, when a piece is published, waiting for words from someone you've never met that indicate that you've communicated across the universe.
Sadly this is the thing that, like most writers I suspect, seems to make hen's teeth look easy to find. I work hard to read as much of the work of others as I can fit in and send them messages in a bottle that somebody found their work worthy. And that makes me wonder how many writers are actually reading the work of others who are on the same journey instead of living in a 'look at me, aren't I clever?' bubble.
At the extreme, there is the arrogance that some writers assume once published. Recently I took the trouble to track down a writer published in a lit mag that doesn't seem to think it necessary to provide any links or contacts for the writers they publish online. Eventually I found an academic email for the writer and sent off a couple of paragraphs of fulsome praise for their work. My reward? A one word reply: 'Thanks'.
That rare glimpse, that realization that I am writing effortlessly, without ego--when I slip into the role of humble writer and step aside to let the muse do the work--for me, that is success.
Litmag publication for me represents a stepping stone - a critical one at that - to the big thing. It's an acceptance the aggregate of which tells you that your collection of poems, fiction or non-fiction is not just a patchwork of navel-gazing narcissism. And for one ever so self-critical, that's hugely important for me. With time and enough of those credits now, I'm facing the book form with more surefootedness.
Thanks as always, Becky. One thing I have to say about success is that it seems to remain elusive. As in, what I once thought of as success stood in front of me. Then I got there, and the success stick moved. And then I got to that moved stick - and it moved again! One could say it's great that I am constantly striving, but I think there might be something wrong with trying to catch a moving stick.
Is that a dolphin or are you just happy to see me?
But seriously, yeah, for me, it's getting the job done. Going from initial idea, to drafting over and over again and coming out of the other end with something that didn't exist in the world and nobody else on the planet could have done it quite like me. That were most of the joy is. Publications are nice, awards are nice. But the writing, the thing itself is the reward and the challenge over and over again.
Sep 12, 2022·edited Sep 12, 2022Liked by Becky Tuch
I ama bit uncomfortable with the GIF of a tuxedoed man abusing a dolphin, but your sentiments are dead on for me. But let me subvert the question, please. Before we take on what success as a writer is, it behooves us to interrogate the concept of success, period. In the capitalist industrial state we live in where success is defined by having tons of followers on Instagram, being famous (ugh!), having lots of stuff (double ugh), winning prizes (what is this, The Price Is Right?), and, in short, selling yourself for some gimmick or another — it can be your pretty face, your suffering, your (fill in whatever your ego desires here) — it's worth a moment to ponder the question. What's success? To me, it is sure as hell has nothing to do with stuff. Nor is it a static quantity: it depends what I'm up to. This morning, right now, success will be to finish this book review in a way that it interesting and respectful, make sure I've done a decent job with the Spanish (because it's being published in Mexico), and get it to my publisher on time. That will be success today. Tomorrow, it will be something else. As a writer, I don't find that shooting for the stars (awful warlike expression) is useful or makes me happy. What does make me happy is sitting down and doing it again. And again. And again. And every day, it's different.
I worked in book publishing, as an editor (Random House, Houghton Mifflin, others), for forty years. That experience has left me with deep respect for small presses, including self-publishers, whose standards can be higher than those that a trade publisher can afford. As one result, I don’t see major publishers as the only route to validation and success for a writer (in my case, a writer of poems). Almost nobody reads poetry anyway, so I might as well use my skills, taste and experience to bring my book out as an art project, under my own imprint, and keep it in print rather than let it be buried under a trade publisher’s (as if!) seasonal avalanche of celebrity cookbooks. I am not intimidated by book publishing’s gatekeepers. I was one.
I can't deny the external measures. . . having a piece accepted. Winning an award. Still out in the future are the chapbook and then the book. But none of that can happen without the basic accomplishment of getting to the desk/the notebook and staying there long enough to make something that feels at least on the way to complete. That is the foundational success and what a deeply satisfying feeling it yields!
Success for me has been when something is used on the decision of a peer. Self-publishing isn't something I would consider a success, for me, though there is good work being done that way and I don't see myself as a snob over it.
The idea of sipping champagne on a yacht was never part of the dream. For me, to leave something behind is/was the whole point. The secret wish is to become a cult fifty years after I croak. That's 50% kidding.
(The champagne part is good, but it always tastes better when I don't have to deal with other writers telling me what they're working on).
Barring that, I'll take the fact that I left a trail of published work that reflects my voice behind me totally independent of anybody's dogma or manifesto about how it's supposed to be done or what it means.
An article on LitHub estimated that poetry MFA programs in the US produce 3,000 graduates every year—and that was five years ago.
https://lithub.com/mfa-by-the-numbers-on-the-eve-of-awp/
A partial list of writers who self-published at one time or another, or even exclusively:
Margaret Atwood, William Blake, Robert Bly, Beatrix Potter, Willa Cather, e.e. cummings, T.S. Eliot, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Marcel Proust, D. H. Lawrence, Anaïs Nin, J. K. Rowling, Carl Sandburg, Gertrude Stein, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, William Butler Yeats, Kay Ryan . . .
Self-publishing (AKA independent publishing) is not at all the same thing as vanity publishing, though a common misconception holds that they are the same.
Having a manuscript accepted by a major trade publisher used to offer the advantage of wide and efficient distribution, but that’s rare now, and it has always been driven by seasonal and marketing demands. Your book is likely to be remaindered or pulped these days if it doesn’t become a best seller in the approximately 30-day window that the publisher’s bean counters give it. With luck, you might become a “midlist author.” Either way, you’ve probably signed your copyright over to a corporation that could not really care less about you or your book. Of course I hope that you will be the exception, and if big-name publication is your dream, go for it.
As for me, I had to write really terrible porn for a year to cure myself of wanting my work to please my parents, my teachers, and other approval- and validity-granting figures (and institutions). I write what I want and trust that the work will find its way, and its readers.
Richard Kostelanetz’s “The End of Intelligent Writing,” especially the first edition, describes how the most vital artistic work in US culture begins at the margins, with scant or no support from established institutions. That book was originally published in the late 1970s, but it’s more relevant than ever.
Here's a Rumi poem that expresses how I define success as a writer -- and in life:
"Try to lose.
Don't do anything for power or influence.
Run into the mind's fire
Play this game because you love,
And the playing is love"
-- Rumi
Writing can be a very lonely, isolating endeavor. It helps to have a virtual community like this one Becky has created. Commitment is hard to sustain, but I have spent a sizeable chunk of my entire adult life chained to a typewriter/computer because this effort remains the sole connection with reconciling my inner life with the larger world. Being an odd duck was and is a struggle, and I still write about that conflict, even when practically every piece I submit boomerangs back to my desk.
Being successful can take the form of being published, and I am gratified when it does. But I often have to remind myself that no one ever showed up at my door with a personal invitation to the writers' club.
Being published is undeniably an adrenaline high and a reason to celebrate on Facebook. But success for me is figuring out exactly the right words for the situation and having someone else notice. “That’s it, that’s exactly what it is like,“ they will say, and I know I have done my job.
well for me, it's simple. I want to hold a real book in my hand with my name on the cover. Not one self published by me either, Random House maybe. That's it.
Writing well, enticing readers to read on, root for your characters, care about them. I feel best when a reader tells me he or she connected, AND that my words moved them. I aim always for less is more, treating the editing process as important as the creating end.
To me, success is never giving up. To paraphrase science fiction writer (although he hated to be labeled ) Harlan Ellison: "The secret to being a writer is not becoming a writer, but STAYING a writer. Writing day in and day out, never giving up, until a publishable body of work is done. "
And when that is done, you write more!
That, to me, is success!
I'm not going to lie, the yacht and the sparkling silver coins of the water sound pretty good right about now. I don't even need the magazines to be arguing over me. Just so long as the maritime cops aren't on their way to throw me off a stolen yacht. (In seriousness though, for me I think it means paying the bills and the respect of my peers.)
In writing, there's a cycle. Reading; talking about writing, especially with fellow writers; digging deep to talk to yourself and put good words on paper; reaching out to readers. Because the art of words is all about communication. When all these parts of the cycle are working, it's very satisfying. I belong to a writing group and take workshops from time to time. Some people scorn this, but I think that's a mistake. Writing is about intimacy, whether with yourself or others. Listening is just as important as having a voice. Taking criticism is just as important as giving it, especially with the awareness of stimulation, or challenge, and in the context of mental intimacy. Let's say, getting triggered to write. Didn't Anne Sexton say writing was better than sex? We writers are in love with writing...and love has swings of emotion...We are all trying to settle down into (another quote alert)--a marriage of true minds.
Becky, being published in Lit Mags to me means success because it means I stay connected with my daily writing effort. I may submit the same kinds of poems, over and over, and this does not mean I'm improving. I may or may not be improving. But continuing to write means success to me, with or without publication, with or without public recognition. If my work is published it's a small indication to me that my work may be somehow worthy. Writing reviews, on the other hand, has become slightly stale to me. (I've published over 75 reviews.) Either I need to stop reviewing, or I need a break from it because I noticed I'm not reading as attentively as I used to. When the imagination drops, to me that's a signal to either rest a while, or switch to another genre. This, and publication, has kept me going, in spite of the fact that levels of enthusiasm within me rise and drop. So many comments here gave me new courage: not being afraid of the gatekeeper, pursuing your own style / voice without letting anyone dictate how it's supposed to be done, drafting a collection as an art project, perhaps even a labor of love, without regard to earnings, etc. and not letting trade publishers dictate.
Success for me is not the dude on the dolphin. If anything it's the dogged dolphin itself, soldiering---or sailoring-- on despite the off-key yowlings of the guy I've got. Sometimes I'd like to dump him, but he's the only writer I've got. Otherwise I'm very much in accord with you, Becky: publishing and confirmation are great, but out there in the ocean there's nobody much around to cheer or even jeer, so I've got to keep going.
For me, the first level of success as a writer=writing. So many people dream of becoming writers, yet never actually write for whatever reason(s). I keep this standard of mine low, and am therefore never disappointed. I write, so boom, success! Additional bonuses: delightful aha moments during writing, that satisfying click of finishing a piece, other people reading and even liking my work, publication, awards and accolades...but to quote a recent Morgan Talty tweet, "The only absolute writing process that exists is the one where you write."
I've always been chasing the high I got winning school-wide writing awards (with first drafts!) as a kid. I assumed I'd be a famous writer by now, but the petty criticisms I encountered in undergrad writing workshops and lack of awards in college made me stop writing for years (as well as skipping an MFA). It's so hard to write without the benefit of external validation.
I almost passed by this conversation, thinking I really could not afford the time away from an article due in a few days that seems beyond my ability to do well. But I looked at it anyway, maybe because anything is better than trying to work when the work isn't working. And then I read: "Knowing that I have . . . faced previous periods of uncertainty, etc… and yet wrangled . . . a hot mess into a viable . . . creation. . . . & Remember last time? You pulled it off then, & you can pull it off now!" So when I looked at it anyway, what I found was a gift. A truth. Thank you, Becky!
I read a lot of poetry, books & literary reviews & I write. As years of study & writing go by, I've improved. However, chances of getting a book published look slim, but I'm determined to accomplish this. It's not exactly a fun project, but I push on.
Furiously agreeing with most of what you and others have said, Becky, but for me you nailed it with 'a viable artistic creation that went on to be read and praised by others, does naturally help.' Obviously, first comes the wrangling of the writing, then sending off your work to be spanked or cuddled in the seemingly random world of lit mags and, when a piece is published, waiting for words from someone you've never met that indicate that you've communicated across the universe.
Sadly this is the thing that, like most writers I suspect, seems to make hen's teeth look easy to find. I work hard to read as much of the work of others as I can fit in and send them messages in a bottle that somebody found their work worthy. And that makes me wonder how many writers are actually reading the work of others who are on the same journey instead of living in a 'look at me, aren't I clever?' bubble.
At the extreme, there is the arrogance that some writers assume once published. Recently I took the trouble to track down a writer published in a lit mag that doesn't seem to think it necessary to provide any links or contacts for the writers they publish online. Eventually I found an academic email for the writer and sent off a couple of paragraphs of fulsome praise for their work. My reward? A one word reply: 'Thanks'.
Love this post, the question, and what you’ve already said.
I think, for me it’s 1) publishing a book I’m proud of with a big publisher 2) amassing a decent readership.
Either or works, but both would be nice.
Then, of course? Just having the health, the clarity of mind, and the inspiration to write. That, alone, is a privilege.
That rare glimpse, that realization that I am writing effortlessly, without ego--when I slip into the role of humble writer and step aside to let the muse do the work--for me, that is success.
Thank you for sharing!
Litmag publication for me represents a stepping stone - a critical one at that - to the big thing. It's an acceptance the aggregate of which tells you that your collection of poems, fiction or non-fiction is not just a patchwork of navel-gazing narcissism. And for one ever so self-critical, that's hugely important for me. With time and enough of those credits now, I'm facing the book form with more surefootedness.
Thanks as always, Becky. One thing I have to say about success is that it seems to remain elusive. As in, what I once thought of as success stood in front of me. Then I got there, and the success stick moved. And then I got to that moved stick - and it moved again! One could say it's great that I am constantly striving, but I think there might be something wrong with trying to catch a moving stick.
Is that a dolphin or are you just happy to see me?
But seriously, yeah, for me, it's getting the job done. Going from initial idea, to drafting over and over again and coming out of the other end with something that didn't exist in the world and nobody else on the planet could have done it quite like me. That were most of the joy is. Publications are nice, awards are nice. But the writing, the thing itself is the reward and the challenge over and over again.
No question, it's definitely making up new words! Newwordism. (Wait, they already have a word for this? Curses!)
I ama bit uncomfortable with the GIF of a tuxedoed man abusing a dolphin, but your sentiments are dead on for me. But let me subvert the question, please. Before we take on what success as a writer is, it behooves us to interrogate the concept of success, period. In the capitalist industrial state we live in where success is defined by having tons of followers on Instagram, being famous (ugh!), having lots of stuff (double ugh), winning prizes (what is this, The Price Is Right?), and, in short, selling yourself for some gimmick or another — it can be your pretty face, your suffering, your (fill in whatever your ego desires here) — it's worth a moment to ponder the question. What's success? To me, it is sure as hell has nothing to do with stuff. Nor is it a static quantity: it depends what I'm up to. This morning, right now, success will be to finish this book review in a way that it interesting and respectful, make sure I've done a decent job with the Spanish (because it's being published in Mexico), and get it to my publisher on time. That will be success today. Tomorrow, it will be something else. As a writer, I don't find that shooting for the stars (awful warlike expression) is useful or makes me happy. What does make me happy is sitting down and doing it again. And again. And again. And every day, it's different.