Savvy?
Yeah, you knew the pic was coming with a title like that. But Jack Sparrow has a point, yanno? Any pirate worth his salt has to be able to taste which way the wind is blowing. The same goes for writers.
The minute you press “Publish” on your first blog post, or the minute you make that heart-pounding decision to show your work to somebody who could, one day, maybe give you some money for it, is the minute where you have to become Savvy. Writers groups speak a lot about writing “the book of your heart” because it’s a phenomenon that broadsides all of us at different times. Even when we think we’re ready for it and facing the cutlass with both eyes open, only to find out it’s the cannon from the side that’s just pounded us to hamburger. And what’s that cannon loaded with? Nothing more or less than the lead shot and gunpowder of The Market.
As writers, we signed up for this gig to, well, write. Now when we want to share our work with the world, it turns out that we have to do things that are the opposite of writing. We have to pay attention to markets. We have to promote. We have to be aware of whether or not the words coming from our hearts and the stories begging to be told are morsels tasty enough to be fed to the beast that thrashes the calm waters of our creativity and devours unsuspecting sailors when plucked from the riggings of their tiny, tossed boats. The Market…will eat you alive if you let it.
Every writer has to find his or her own fine line to walk between the appetite of The Market, and the uncut purity of self-expression. It’s important to understand that The Market is never the same beast twice. Sometimes it can be fed, placated with some morsels of marketability in your works. Other times, it is a demanding maw that can, if you allow it, suck out all the soul from your work in exchange for safe passage through troubled waters.
That isn’t to say that The Market can’t be negotiated with. There are many tools in the writer’s belowdecks good for navigating The Market’s hungers. The first is to stay informed. Its twin is to stand firm. A writer who completely writes to The Market is often chasing from behind, pursuing a beast that is faster and sleeker than can be overcome. Some writers can catch up to that beast close enough to harpoon it from the backside and let it pull them along. Other writers find that The Market’s path carries it close enough for them to leap and catch a wild ride, if they react quickly enough. Still other writers may find that The Market’s main body is far away from them, save for one of its many adjunct limbs that may be stalked and tamed for a time. Some writers will steer far away from the thrashings of the beast and concentrate on smaller, calmer waters.
Each of these paths has its benefits and disadvantages. The beast-hunter can only ride for the length of the harpoon rope, and a sudden change in the beast’s direction can mean a quick and messy scuttle. The leapers can only ride for as long as the thrashes take the beast close to their home waters, and should they find themselves moving in a different direction, it is the beast that will leave them behind, no matter how hard they pull and how tight they hold. And the limb-tamers can too easily find themselves severed from the beast in its efforts towards self-preservation. Those who navigate the calm waters away from the beast will never see the action that the beast’s movements bring to their sea.
Staying informed will help the writer track the beast that is The Market. Standing firm will help the writer track the limits of what their craft can take in pursuit of the beast. How much of Jack Sparrow and how much of Captain Ahab you want to be is up to you, the writer.
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