By Stephen Hipkiss
We all have regrets, and we can never know how things would have turned out if we didn’t have them, but here are a few of my writing regrets in the hope you do not repeat them.
I started writing in 2000, when computers were not everywhere, mobile phones were yet to be part of my world and to submit to a publisher you had to physically post the manuscript and wait for the response, or not. Though, to be honest, waiting for a response or not hasn’t changed.
I was young, wanted to be a successful author like JK Rowling or JRR Tolkien, and I had an imagination that I believed I could achieve this with. It took time, writing on and off for 9 years (mostly off), getting to about 30,000 words written. It was slow going. My wife and I then decided to move to Australia in the summer of 2009. We arrived, and as I was not on the correct visa, I had a holiday visa, I couldn’t work. Hooray. I can write. I spent hours completing the first draft on the smallest laptop I have ever owned, even giving the manuscript a quick, uneducated edit. This I then sent off to a few, very unfortunate publishers by mail.
NEVER SEND A FIRST DRAFT TO A PUBLISHER.
You would think that would be the worst mistake of my writing life, and it was at that stage, but I was to do much worse.
I waited for a response. If you have dealt with or submitted to a publisher, you will know these are never quick, if ever at all. At the time, I wanted and needed to know that my time wasn’t being wasted. I wanted that feedback, justification for spending hours working away on a manuscript I believed was good. I never got it.
I stopped writing.
For 11 years, I didn’t write, and I regret every one of those missed years. This is my greatest regret when it comes to writing. I love writing and now know that whether I become an author or not, I will never stop creating stories. I enjoy creating worlds, characters, magic and weapons. Dragging characters through hell, or worse, and taking the reader on a journey from the comfort of their armchair.
Eventually, I gave that first book the attention and love it deserved through rewrites and edits. I then wrote books 2 and 3 of the trilogy. This is uadvisable from a business point of view, as you can never sell books 2 and 3 without book one being successful. I didn’t care. I wanted to complete the trilogy, prove to myself I could, and write for the joy of it, learning along the way.Book 4, a stand-alone fantasy, came next, to be followed very quickly by a romantic treasure-finding novel.
It took me time to realise how much I enjoy sitting at my computer creating. It has never been a waste of time, and it certainly should never be for the money. A few writers make a great living from being writers. Just a few. But there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people who have written a book and sold fewer than 20 copies.
If you love to write, this is why you should write.
I am now part of an amazing writing community, have spoken to many authors and a few publishers, and have become part of the industry through starting a publishing company. And I still love to write. If I become a published author, great. If my work is only read by my wife (who is contractually obliged to like my work) and a few friends who enjoy it, then I am happy because I enjoyed creating the story.
We writers like to write, and I see it every month with the Gold Coast Writers Association; we love to start creating, act on ideas and see where they take us. If you write enough, eventually your writing will get better and better, and then maybe, just maybe, you can be one of those fortunate few who make a living wage from writing.
But …
Never stop writing like I did! That decision put me about 8 books behind where I could have been today, and I truly regret not having those stories to share.