As writers, we spend a tremendous amount of time chasing milestones: finishing manuscripts, finding an agent, submitting to magazines, signing a contract, publishing books, reaching readers. All of these are necessary and rewarding goals. Eventually, though, especially after you’ve been in the business a while, another question begins to feel more important: what kind of writing life am I trying to build? And perhaps just as important: what might that writing life allow me to become?
A book deal is an event. A writing life can last for decades. We certainly want to be happy with each of our manuscripts, but I think it is far more important that, after years of writing, we find ourselves happy with our lives and careers. If we focus only on the next milestone, we may wake up, ironically, with a successful career that doesn’t match what we had in mind for ourselves. I know this is not speculation. Over the years, too many writers have told me they looked up one day and discovered they had built a career they never consciously chose. That’s why I encourage writers to always think beyond the next book.
Imagine yourself ten or twenty years from now. What does an ordinary day in your ideal world look like? Are you writing only what matters to you? Beyond your writing, are you teaching, speaking, mentoring? Success isn’t simply reaching the next goal. It’s building a life you’ll still be excited and grateful to live years after you’ve created it. One of the most important things you can do is understand what success means to you now. That definition will almost certainly change as you change, but knowing what matters to you today gives you a direction in which to move intentionally.
We often make lists of projects we want to write. Those are fun and necessary. But as an exercise, instead of writing a list of your publishing goals, take a moment to describe what an ordinary day would ideally look like in your future life as a writer. Where do you write? Who do you spend time with? What do you think you’ll still be excited about twenty years from now? Seeing and feeling this may tell you more about what you ought to be doing today than any list of individual projects. What do you hope will have grown in you along the way?
A writing career isn’t really built one contract at a time. Instead, it’s built on intentional, sequential days. Celebrate milestones as they come. Work hard for them. Be grateful for them. Reward yourself when you reach them. Just remember that they aren’t the destination. They are signposts along the road. Pay attention to where they lead, but remain curious about the side roads you never expected to find. The real goal is to start today by creating the life for yourself in which your writing continues to challenge you, fulfill you, connect you with others, and connect you with yourself for decades to come.
When you finally look back on your career, your greatest accomplishment might not be a particular book or award. It may simply be knowing you paid attention to what mattered, remained open to what you might become, and intentionally built the writing life you meant for yourself.
