The Dark Side of Success: When Achieving Your Wildest Writing Dreams Becomes a Nightmare

This week in writing life:

Good news: I finished a zero draft of a novel in a record three weeks. It’s an idea that’s been percolating in my brain for years and that’s the only reason it came out so fast.

Bad news: I was eager to begin the lengthy revision period but then I had a run-in with Helene. Writing this from husband’s workplace because I’ve been without power since the storm. She packed a particularly nasty punch. Here’s a pic of the college where I used to teach writing. That campus will never be the same.

The Dark Side of Success: When Achieving Your Wildest Writing Dreams Becomes a Nightmare      

Many artists dream of finding their tribe and enjoying a mutual love fest. It’s a space we could probably float around in for years.  But what if that supportive tribe morphs into a mob? And what if that mob starts to cruelly skewer your work for sport, and suddenly millions of critical eyeballs are zeroing in on you.

That’s what happened to one novelist.

Her name’s Colleen Hoover, and to her legions of devoted readers, she’s known as Co-Ho, and they are her co-horts. In one year, her books outsold the Bible. By three million copies!  

But, in a recent Texas Monthly interview she revealed a shocking secret. She’s stopped writing.  

“I’m absolutely in that moment of panic now that I know how many people are going to read it,” she says. “… Release days don’t sound fun… It used to be so exciting, and now it’s not. And that’s the saddest part.”

The Price of Success

Many artists daydream about wild success and why not? It looks so heady from the outside. Hoover, for instance, has been profiled in the New York Times, Blake Lively recently starred in the movie adaption of her book It Ends With Us, and she recently launched own brand of nail polish.   

Yet, in some ways, success can be one of the worst things that can happen to an artist. When we’re not ready for it, it screws with our psyches. In a Los Angeles Times article, Janet Fitch, author of an early Oprah pick White Oleander, says, “When you have success, people think you know what you’re doing, and you start to agree with them . . . But you go from grandiosity to panic.”

Also, you can get accustomed to success very quickly. One day, you’re jumping up and down over the news of a lifetime; the next day the same level of news elicits a yawn. As actor Jim Carrey says, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.”   

But, a terrible byproduct of success is when it paralyzes our creativity. Our joy turns into fear.  

 Katherine Stockett, author of The Help has yet to write a sophomore novel. In an interview with Time in 2009, she said, “I sit in my little office, and I feel like I've got all my readers staring at me. The first book you write because of the way it makes you feel. The second one you can't help but wonder how it's going to make the reader feel.”

The Charms of Success

Even knowing the pitfalls of success, most of us still want it. Maybe not nail-polish-line success but our own versions of it. Success can be a glorious thing and not just for the money or attention.  

When we’re successful, it means our art is reaching and affecting many people. It can be a highly enjoyable state, but if focus on how our art is received, we might tie ourselves into granny knots.

 TikTok made Hoover a mega star, but eventually its audience started attacking her. Hoover says, “It’s almost like I’m writing for the people who are just waiting to put out that negative video of my books, because it gets views It’s just the popular thing, to hate, right now, and I wish I didn’t let that get in my head, but I do.”

Negotiating Success Without Going Nuts

So, what’s the solution? How do we get the outside world’s prying eyes and out of our heads?

One whimsical way is to re-frame the way creative work is produced. In a Ted Talk, Elizabeth Gilbert describes how the Greeks and Romans believed artists were not wholly responsible for their creative work. Instead, art was seen as a collaboration with a disembodied entity called a daemon. If the art isn’t good, well then, it’s the daemon fault.  

We can also examine our own subjective reactions to other people’s art. First instance. I can name dozens of beloved books I didn’t connect with. (Gentleman in Moscow and The Goldfinch for starters.)

 That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with those books. They simply didn’t gel with my individual perceptions and world view, and it’s not the least bit personal.

Also, if reviewers get nasty, they usually have agendas and the more experience you have as a creator, the more easily you can spot those agendas. In Hoover’s case, readers bashed her, hoping for more views on TikTok.  

.As Seth Godin, author The Practice says, “A desire for external approval and authority directly undermines your ability to trust yourself.”  

If we persevere through undesirable outcomes and continue to do the work, a magical thing happens: We become almost bullet proof writers, eager to generously give of ourselves, over and over, even when the tomatos hit the stage.

Pitch of the Week

HOT DESK, set in both the world of post-pandemic book publishing and in glamorous, bygone 1980s literary Manhattan, about two rival editors who, while vying for the same problematic author’s estate, uncover secrets that raise questions about appropriation, sexism, and who has the right to tell their story.

It’s tricky to pitch a book with dual timelines but this is done well.  Would love to read about juxtaposition of these two very different times in publishing. Desire and antagonism is clear, and the idea is very much in the zeitgeist.

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