It WILL make you a happy writer!
Particularly in the writing, music, and acting worlds, the emphasis on fame is highly destructive. I’m currently closest to the literary world, where 70% of the teaching offers are about getting you published or an agent. 20% are on improving your craft, and 10% about discovering yourself as a writer or finding your voice. This is, of course, backwards.
A lot of writer coaching begins with people claiming they want to get work out there so it can be read. I feel like I should signpost people to a marketing course. As coaching continues, it reveals more about why the book isn’t quite finished, why it hasn’t been sent out, or even why it hasn’t been started. Most people who write professionally are secure in their voice, they know why they are writing, what they are writing and how they write best. For many, these are fundamentals, and they’ve taken a long time to learn. For me they are the most vital aspects of writing. If you can master these, then an agent and publication is far more likely. So it’s hard to understand why the ‘writing industry’ approaches the whole thing backwards.
Perhaps because the industry itself has done no clear thinking on what it wants.
A healthy writing industry is full of skilled and secure writers, who have spent time developing their craft, who are settled in themselves, their subjects and their process. Writers who understand themselves as writers and the work they write. This is what writer coaching focusses on.
But we seem to have an industry that focusses on fame, getting published, selling yourself and your work in a competitive marketplace, and paying out of your own pocket to do so. The industry trains new writers to write and think the same, about their craft and their role. Many writing competitions, journal and magazines might charge to submit, rarely acknowledge receipt, and fail to let writers know if they’ve been unsuccessful.
We have somehow managed to develop an industry that is unsupportive of the writers it claims to be about, which is highly dysfunctional.
So we might say about writer coaching that it will not get you an agent, it will not get you published and it will not make you famous. But it will help you find your voice and better understand and appreciate what you are writing and why. For me, understanding what we do and why we do it is the place to start.
If you agree then maybe writer coaching is for you.
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