For the Love of Writing
What Jasmine Guillory Helped Me Remember as I Inch Closer to My Novel’s Release
“Every time I sit down to write, I remind myself that I started doing this because I loved it.”
— Jasmine Guillory
A few weeks ago, my husband asked me what my goals were for my book. In other words, what outcome am I shooting for? How many copies do I want to sell? Do I want to make a bestsellers list?
I immediately felt defensive, as if years of my work were about to be reduced to a spreadsheet analyzing its success or failure. Now that my novel’s release date is about six months away, crippling anxiety has started to set in about all the things I could, or should, be doing to give my book the best chance of, you know, selling.
The to-do lists are endless and overwhelming: send out advance copies, get blurbs, submit for reviews, get on podcasts, plan launch events and panels, reach out to book clubs, apply for awards... you get the idea. But after spending a year and a half writing the book and waiting another year and a half for it to be published, I owe it to myself and all the work I’ve already put in to take every possible step to make it a “success,” even if it sucks all the joy out of it—right?
Thankfully, this week I stumbled across a CNBC interview with New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory, in which she candidly discusses the ups and downs of making a career as an author—and how hard it can be to ever feel like you’ve “made it.” Here’s a woman who graduated from Stanford Law School, worked as an attorney, and then became a full-time novelist. She’s published nine books—five of which have become New York Times bestsellers—yet she still struggles with the unpredictable nature of being an author.
It would be easy to read that and feel discouraged. If someone who’s beaten the odds and is successful by every measure still doesn’t feel like they’ve arrived, what does that mean for the rest of us?
But she shared something that shifted my perspective. She started writing romance as a creative outlet during a difficult time in her life. She wasn’t writing in hopes of becoming the next Danielle Steel—she wrote to give herself the comfort of a guaranteed happy ending, something she felt she really needed at the time.
As Jasmine puts it, “I sort of thought, this seems like it would be fun to write. Let’s see if it will be. And then it turned out it was... I never started doing this in order to make a career out of it.”
When I started writing Annie in Retrospect, I hadn’t written in a couple of years. But I needed a creative outlet after losing myself in the mind-numbing monotony of momming three young kids during the pandemic. The story was my escape from reality. The characters became my friends. I created a world I could fully understand and completely control. I enjoyed losing and finding myself through every brainstorm, draft, and edit. The writing was the reward.
I realized the reason I felt defensive when my husband asked about my goals for the book is that there’s no way to measure the joy it gave me to write it—or the way I’ll feel when I hold it in my hands for the first time and fulfill a dream two decades in the making. The truth is, it doesn’t matter how many people buy my book. I would’ve written it anyway—just for me. Would I love to sell a lot of books? Yes, so I can keep writing more books! There’s truly no better career than getting paid for something you’d do for free.
So I’ve decided to relax and let go of the need to control the uncontrollable. I’ll do what I can to introduce my book to readers, but not at the expense of my sanity or the enjoyment of the experience. Every day, I’m learning. And this book is just the beginning of my author journey—an unpredictable story over which I have very little control.
But I can keep writing. And that’s enough.
You can read the interview with Jasmine Guillory here.
