It’s the first Wednesday of the month and time for another posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

November 5 question: When you began writing, what did you imagine your life as a writer would be like? Were you right, or has this experience presented you with some surprises along the way?

Once upon a time I believed that being a writer meant writing books and drinking coffee, perhaps crying at how wonderful my book is (a la Romancing the Stone) and then handing it off to my editor before starting the next book.

Then I learned about editing, rewriting, and actually creating art. It was awesome.

But learning that writing (PUBLISHING) is about making money, not art, and all you had to do to “make it” in traditional publishing just disillusioned me. Let’s just say that my nationality counted against me to be trad pubbed by the big five and my genre counted against me to be locally published (despite agents and editors liking my books).

This has meant that I haven’t published (even looked at!) the novels I queried over a decade ago… I’m working on it. Maybe in 2026 I’ll be ready to work through those novels with the experience I have now and make them the best they can be to get published.

We work on our art to package it as a product, so we can sell it to consumers (readers). And sadly, we become content creators in order to make people aware of our books. Willow has a thorough take on it.

Why does this bother me so much?

Writing a good book takes time (whether behind the keyboard or just in your head before typing it all out in a couple of days). Editing and rewriting it into something amazing takes more time. It’s up to individual writers if this spans months or years. These books are rich with worldbuilding, characterisation, layers of complexity, and everything having a reason for being there.

This is important. Books take a commitment of time, energy and emotion to read. And they better be worth it.

When you read a good book, it increases your capacity for empathy. (And it’s not the case for every piece of fiction, of course.) Books need layers. Books need to reveal more of itself with each re-read. The characters need to be complex. But a lot of popular books are as nutritious and challenging as iceberg lettuce… yummy in a salad, but with no sustenance. I’m not saying you need to read literary fiction (most make you want to eat enough kale to pass out as kale is much less challenging). But the cookie-cutter books full of toxic masculinity, vague worldbuilding, interesting story arcs never going anywhere as they were forgotten by the author and editor halfway through, the book ending on a shocking cliffhanger just to get the readers to buy and read the next book… These books have enough pretty icing to hide the lack of substance for those who read just to keep up with what’s trending on TikTok/BookTube/whoever they need to keep up with.

You should want to think, engage, and use what you read to grow. It should be entertaining. But you need to be able to write in a way to show humanity (yours, the reader’s, your characters’) as the real world becomes ever so much colder and stripped from that which connects us.

So what have I learned in the last twenty years?

• Movies and TV shows lie when they have writers as protagonists (more than just: when did Jessica Fletcher have time to write books and solve murders?).
• You need a writing community (other writers) to commiserate with and to celebrate with.
• Even trad pub authors have to do their own marketing and grow their own following (newsletters are important).
• Publishing is a business: Are you a hobbyist or a career author?
• Being a public figure (when on the internet, we’re all public figures), our actions and words are closely watched. And the moment we step out of line, we can be thrown into the court of public opinion and be cancelled (or more likely, relentlessly harassed). Cancel Culture is real.
• Writing to market can destroy your soul (and, possibly, society).
• As an author, you need to be a good marketer (and be able to juggle different hats of a publisher even if you aren’t indie).
• You need to make time for your writing, for marketing, and for self-care (and living your life) or suffer from burnout.
• And I learned a boatload of skills that I share in blogposts. See my For Authors page.

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What have you learned about writing and publishing since starting? You can learn loads more on my For Authors page here. You can read my reviews by searching for the category in the search bar if you’re interested.

If you would like to read and review any of my non-fiction books, tell me in the comments and I’ll be in touch. (Top row consists of writing prompt books; second row has a book about blogging, one about platform building, and one about audio.) You can learn all about my non-fiction books here.

I’m also doing Novel November by ProWritingAid. Learn more here.