Q&A: Are you really "all over the place" or are you curious and expansive?

Forget "niche," forget "branding"

Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash

I asked for your questions… and in they came. Thank you! It’s good to know what’s on your mind/s. (I believe this is #6. The fifth question was about show-don’t-tell, and I’m still grappling with that; truth is, I’m trying to figure out what my earlier two posts about “show” and “tell” are missing. I know this is a tough one… I’ll keep you “posted.”)

You asked about writing about a breadth of topics!

From Tara, it was: I’ve been holding back posting some of my non-fiction/essays/ramblings online to a substack or blog because I cannot commit to a set topic/theme. I tend to be an all over the place kind of person and have a wider net of interests/subject matters that spring to mind vs just one or two more set topics, and haven’t been sure how big of a problem this may pose in attracting and keeping a core set of readers in the short or long term.

Followed by another reader-writer saying he has the same question.

Disclaimer: my published works are also all over the map: picturebooks, historical middle-grade novels, YA works, short fiction and long and memoir for adults. A work for an educational publisher. A ghost-written Boxcar Children even…

I believe this makes me one of Tara’s quintessential “all over the place kind of person.”

I was the kid who played the flute, did somersaults on the 2X4 balance beam I built in the backyard, and took ventriloquism by correspondence. The always wanting-to-know-stuff kid. I hung out at rummage sales on Saturday mornings, and filled my bicycle basket with books: mysteries, how to crochet, know-your-dog-breeds. Cookbooks. Biographies. All sorts. As much as I’d like to find a good box to fit into, I know I never will; it’s not “me.”

Ah… maybe I’m not the best person to ask this question of!

What has this done for my “career?” Besides cause me to feel I have to wrap quotation marks around that word?? I’ll admit: it’s probably made it tougher. The marketing, the branding, the niche-ing thing? Oh, misery. I’m not so good at it. Look at The Unschool, with posts about picturebooks and poetry, novels and dithering… all over the place.

I write what I want. When—and as—the ideas come to me. But…

Ideas feel like gifts; gifts are hard to ignore.

“Career” in quotations

I don’t want to go ahead and say “write whatever you want—so long as your heart and gut are in it” without first saying words about readership and reality, and maybe some hindsight thrown in like salt. For many of my own works, my readership shifts; it doesn’t build from one published project to another. I know I have a completely different group of readers from one book to the next. Even within each form/genre/area, I have different types of themes, my protagonists are as likely to be male as female and my settings are urban/suburban/rural.

These are my last two published works:

adult memoir & pre-schooler picturebook - published in same calendar year

In the year these were released, I thought it would be advantageous to share the two with writers’ festivals and such. My thinking: two audiences for the price of one participant. Felt so obvious to me. But it didn’t work that way. They ended up giving me the usual gigs of school-room visits and such.

It’s been challenging to send out a new project, knowing that in spite of years of writing and publishing, the audience from the last book or two will have little effect on the new. This does NOT endear you to publishers, who now—often—answer to marketing people.

If you read my post about a prospective editor’s marketing questions, you’ll see how this translates.

Does it matter that you have—or don’t have—1.2 million followers on Instagram?

But… there’s always a “but”

On Sunday, I took part in an “authors’ open house” library event. After a presentation and read, we were to set up books on a table, and chat and sell copies. I took a few copies of a number of works. One or two copies of each sold (all over the map!) The conversations took different paths. I suspect the diversity in works on the table was inviting. I enjoyed the conversations, the turns, the sense of beautiful dithering over one book for a niece or another for a brother, or what to buy for one’s self…

One question is: what do you want from your writing?

And the other: what do you want from your “writing career?”

Two separate questions. Or do you see it as one and the same?

More questions

Is there an area/age group/genre that draws you in? Can you imagine writing such stories/essays/posts/poems for an extended length of time?

Do your ideas grow and flourish this area?

Or can you separate having the genre/area in which you publish, and other areas in which you write but with different intention?

How important is having a __________ (fill in the blank) lifestyle? Some people need more financial security than do others. Be honest with yourself about this. You need to think about how much this matters to YOU. Do some thoughtful scribbling about this.

What are your “threads”?

Do you see any commonalities in all your interests and written work?

I see “curiosity” in mine. And a reluctance to be pigeon-holed. (WHAT does that phrase mean?)

Can you see ways in which these threads can come together?

If they really are threads that do not weave together, can you use the “sections” capacity here in Substack to include these disparate threads under an umbrella of sorts?

Spend time with this, the thinking about “threads.” Share in comments, and we might discuss. Regardless of your answers, there is one commonality—and that is you.

I’ve wandered here, from questioning your writing in broader strokes, and back to the question of what you post here/Substack.

Hindsight 20/20

Would I do anything differently if I could?

I have moments—longish moments—of thinking “Yes.” But when I try to articulate what, I realize that, given the ideas I’ve enjoyed working with, I don’t know how I would have done anything differently.

My son was making a decision about accepting a position. And his thinking was to look ahead 6-8 months, and consider how, in the future, he might look back to view the current moment. The thought came to him that he would hate to have regrets about not having accepted that particular challenge. It was a good decision.

Imagine looking back, and the choices you might make. Tough to have foresight-hindsight (!) but worth the time. Scribble journal notes if this is how you process such thinking.

Control

A lot of what-happens-after-writing is not in our control.

And getting messy is not something we do easily. Especially once we’ve set up a newsletter or platform—or something about our work—to appear in a certain way, or be all-of-a-piece.

What is it to let go?

Maybe the real question is: what are we afraid of, if we post the piece that feels to be an anomaly?

What if that is the piece that shakes it all up in the best of ways?

Is the piece something that you wrestled with? Is it words that brought you to a new understanding? Did it pull at your emotions or make your mind work?

Is it what your readers expect… or will it surprise them? Is surprise “good?” Why wouldn’t it be?

For you, which comes first: your readers? or your writing?

Maurice Sendak said that he never thought about his readers. Do you think or feel this is a positive or a negative? How does this—focus on your work, not your readers—work for you? Are you comfortable with revealing another facet of you to your readers?

Will you grow or thrive as a result of posting this piece? Or quite the opposite… and you have more to “gain” from not posting…?

What are such questions you ask of yourself before posting? What are your stories of posting-surprises?

So much of this seems to be one thing OR another. Positive OR negative. But the truth of the thing is that it is messy. And individualistic.

Tara, some questions just cannot help but bring forth more!

Gifts are hard to ignore.