Fool’s Gold for Writers

The Longing

Your stomach grumbles with thunderous intensity. You slip on your good shoes, the rubber boots that will protect your feet from wading in the water for hours. Fully prepared to put in your time, you grab all the necessary sifting supplies, and you prepare yourself by keeping your expectations low and your perception sharp.
~~
Your mind churns for the story. Prepared to put in your time at the computer, you gather coffee, your notebook of character sketches, and Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. You keep your expectations for word count low and your intimacy with your plot and characters strong.

The Hunt
You stand in the sun scanning the shimmery river for that certain glint. Your back aches and you feel as though you could snap in two like flimsy kindling broken for a fire. You select rocks with speckles of shine on them and throw them back, disappointed, but determined to keep looking. The skin on your fingers ripples with water-worn wrinkles as you roll small stones between the pads of your thumb and forefinger.
~~
You invest. You sacrifice. You weed through edits with fierce tenacity, keeping only the shining; only parts that move the plot along fluidly. All else gets thrown back. You rejoice and hurt in response to the highs and lows the industry sends your way. Your hunger remains.

The Find
Dirt crams at the base of your fingernails. You yawn and stretch, ready to stop for the day, perhaps ready to give up altogether. Then your eyes blink double time. They snatch upon a gold-flecked rock beneath the teasing trickling water. You reach down and lift it slowly. At closer glance, you’re sure you’ve found it. No more looking. No more hard work. Toss the boots in the trash. Give away all your sifting supplies. This is it. A fat sun-speckled rock heavy in your hand. It’s what you hunted for. It’s all you thought you wanted. The search is over.
~~
You dream in edits. Worn thin from macro and micro edits, tired from deadlines, the hunt no longer draws you. And then the call. The agent. The publishing house. You see your cover. You hold your book in your hands. This is it, you tell yourself with a twisted feeling nesting in your gut. It’s why you worked so hard. It’s all you thought you wanted. The search is over.

But it’s fool’s gold. In your hand.

Yes, having a novel published is an incredible achievement (I don’t speak from experience on this...yet). Yes, you should celebrate and feel grateful for all you’ve invested and delight at the feel of your book in your hands.

But no, publication will not (not now or ever) define your worth.

The gold, the real gold comes in what you learned while you sifted (and while you keep sifting even after publication). Gold is found in how you choose to dedicate your time putting on those rubber boots wading in the water out of sheer hunger, learning to enjoy your calling. You’re holding onto pure gold when you understand that your worth doesn’t come from being published, but from the process. From getting your hands dirty. Worth isn’t so much about what you might find, but about who you become in the course of that discovery. Your worth was already defined by the living water.

You are more than pyrite, more than a flash in the pan.

All this time you’ve been searching for gold and you, you’re the gold.

*listened to Refiner’s Fire while writing this post
**photos by flickr