[How were you treated before and after you were published, by friends, co-workers, etc. ]

I’m starting a new thread taken from Finding Objective Feedback. Some of you have already answered this question, but there may be others who have not. It interests those of us who are unpublished. We know fairly well how we are treated now, as unpublished writers. (social lepers) What we are curious about is how we will be treated if we ever get published?

I personally think that people who you meet daily, who know you, will not be very impressed. Nothing will change, is my guess. Strangers who read your work and send you email or letters, they will be impressed, but not friends or family.

As a off-topic thought:
I will say that writing is the only occupation I know of where one, after admitting to being a writer, has to make an immediately apology for not being a published author. I don’t think painters or musicians have to apologize for their profession.

Azel

Ok, well, when I was unpublished I never personally felt like a social leper, but I did feel frustrated that I wasn't taken all that seriously by family and friends. I suppose that's only normal, akin to saying you're going to be an actor or an astronaut or something.

After being published, I am certainly treated differently. There is pride from my family that wasn't there before, and respect from friends. I am often getting emails and messages from friends near and far now who are reading or have read my novel to share their thoughts and praise. None of that happened even when I was publishing short stories fairly regularly, so I think a novel has it's own special mystique.

JB



<Added>

A good maxim I have heard for writers is never apologise, never explain. Think it may have been Doris Lessing who coined that one.

A similar answer to JB's - I too have much more interest and support now that I am published, both from friends, family and strangers. Mind you I do have to grit my teeth through the inevitable 'Oh, you'll be the next JKR then', followed swiftly by 'Is it ILLUSTRATED?'

I never made an apology for being unpublished, either - don't see why any writer should feel that they have to!

Family and friends, yes, supportive and in some cases even proud (my mum!), though friends have a slight tendency towards taking the p*ss (in a nice way). Colleagues, whom I never told before I was published, can be extremely snide - because I don't write 'serious' novels, and if I have time for such fripperies then I'm clearly not committed enough to my work. My students are nice, though - they think it's cool to have a lecturer who has 'a life'. (Little do they realise that being hunched over a keyboard in the evenings is the very antithesis of getting any kind of life!)

Rosy

Perhaps some of your colleagues are envious, Rosy - particularly if that recent survey is true - you know, the one where 'being a writer' was voted the job most people want above all other. They probably think you just fell into it with ease and next thing, hey presto, you're a successful published author. If only they knew the process....

Rosy's case is perhaps a bit different because her fiction is a separate operation, as it were, but academics, bless 'em, are notoriously poisonous and snobbish about those of their number who achieve a more popular and/or public profile. It's hard to believe that it springs solely from the desire to defend the intellectual purity of their subject.

And though I know academics are horribly overworked and underpaid, perhaps the sight of seeing one of their colleagues nonetheless managing to squeeze out the time to do something else fulfilling and successful is rather threatening.

Emma

I think I speak for many unpublished writers here, when I say we are more interested in the negative aspects of being a published author. We already know the positive side: becoming a celebrity, being invited to lavish parties by the rich, fortunes in royalties, the sudden transformation to good looks and a slim figure, your pick of men or women to toy with at your leasure, living in a large mansion, servants etc.. Yes, we know all that. But what about the negative side?

Azel

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I'm making a joke of course.

I'm not sure if 'negative' is the right word, because it's all part and parcel of the job. However, when you're published, other things come into play that weren't there previously, such as deadlines and higher expectations of one's work.

JB

Yes, second Book Syndrome can be a pretty negative experience.

But it depends what things were like before, too. Apart from the tiresomeness of acquaintances who think that either you want to be the next JKR, or that you already are and can afford to give them free copies of your book, the loneliness is pretty scary if you're used to being in an office, ditto the financial uncertainty if you're used to a salary, however meagre.

Emma

Though remember, the vast majority of published authors can't give up the day job - the rewards just don't make it feasible - so the reality of finally being 'a novelist' is pretty remote from the daily round, in which you are still at your desk doing whatever it was you were doing before.
Maybe somewhere in a bookshop someone might be buying your book (or not) and reading it (or not) and even maybe enjoying it (or not), but you don't get to see any of this happening. So, apart from watching your Amazon rating go up and down in a sad obsessive manner, the occasional review (if you are VERY lucky), and your publisher's quarterly statement telling you how many boxfuls of your unsold book were returned since the previous statement, the being-published thing could all be happening to someone else entirely!

Rosy

JB, I may be wrong (and haven't looked it up) but thought 'never apologise, never explain' was Margaret Thatcher's maxim. It's a good one for most of us in most situations, though.

I think people are treated differently when they've proved they're good at something rather than appearing to aspire to something without succeeding, whatever that thing is - whether it's to be a writer, a singer, a brain surgeon or whatever. That's why we're all so disparaging about the deluded people who try out on X-factor. It's always seen as a bit sad to think you can be something you can't, but if you then prove that you can do that thing, people tend to respect you and view the whole process completely differently.

I imagine this also applies to having a novel published. However, while some people will be impressed just by the fact of it, others will no doubt pick over whether they are impressed by the genre and whether they see it in every store. All books are equal, but some are more equal than others (apparently).

Deb

apologise, never explain

Churchill certainly said it, don't know if it was original, though I think the world could quite often do with more apologies, not less...

Rosy, you're right, of course. It is weird how cut-off you are from the source of all your excitement. It's like having to be all dressed up for the party which is going on miles away...

Emma

Never apologise, never explain

The original was quoted by Benjamin Disraeli:

Never complain and never explain.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/benjamin_disraeli.html

Which has been borrowed and expanded upon various times since.



<Added>

Although Disraeli is probably not the first, further searching dug up this:

"Never apologize, never explain" is a quote from Immanuel Kant in Critique of Pure Reason (publ.1781).

I'm not sure it works for me so well applied to politics. I agree with Emma that more things should have been or be apologised for. But as a writer's maxim it works quite well.

JB

Maybe it goes back to the Roman Legions or the Spartans: 'Never retreat, never surrender'