How do you measure success as a writer?
A thought-provoking question
How do I measure success?
A friend asked me recently if my first memoir had been a success. It’s a thought-provoking question. How do I measure success as a writer?
Money for words?
As a younger man, I thought success would be writing a bestseller and making lots of money. Well, that has its attractions. When I first became a professional writer, I was intrigued that people would pay money for words that I, or anyone else, might write. It was lovely being paid for words that I put on a page or typed into a computer. It was gratifying seeing my work published and read by others.
Writing what I want to write
But how, now, do I measure success as a writer, for me? Way up my list is writing what I want to write. As a columnist with newspapers and magazines, having the freedom to choose what to write about was joyous and delightful. Write what you want to and get paid for it…That sounded like heaven to me.
Having a blank space in a newspaper or magazine and filling it with my thoughts is a privilege. But what to write?
Inner journey of self-discovery
Writing what you want to read and having that published is seventh heaven. But what do I want to read? I find fact stranger than fiction. I find the personal universal. And I find myself embarked on my inner journey of self-discovery
I seek to respond as best I can to the Socratic imperative: ‘Know Thyself’. And so I find journaling and memoir my thing.
Private journals made public
I have kept journals for most of my life. They were written for nobody else’s eyes but mine alone. They are private and personal. And yet, when I was writing my first memoir, I found myself not only relying on them as my primary source. I quoted from them extensively, making public things I never thought I could tell my closest friend.
Dare to be you
So, for me, now, success as a writer is daring to be me on the page. Daring to be human and to show my vulnerability.
All humans are vulnerable. By me being my true self on the page, a reader might be encouraged to be themselves too. The tinsel world of worldly success – money, fame – does not motivate me. I want to examine my one and only life and see what I have learnt. And it’s a joy, still, when that resonates with a reader.
My measure of success today is: Have I managed to be me? Am I authentic? Am I true to myself? Have I faced my fears? Did I dare to be me?
Joe Armstrong’s first memoir is In My Gut, I Don’t Believe. Review in The Irish Times. He is currently writing his second memoir, Saved by a Woman.
