How It Works Now

Patton Oswalt is a comedian.  A very funny one.  Here he is taking time out from a very solid bit in order to tear a heckler a new scream hole.  Last week, Oswalt gave the keynote address at the Just For Laughs Comedy Conference, which is a thing.  You can read his address here.  And I recommend reading it in full, but I want to highlight this:

I need to decide more career stuff for myself and make it happen for myself, and I need to stop waiting to luck out and be given... I’m seeing this notion take form in a lot of my friends. A lot of you out there. You, for instance, the person I’m writing to. Your podcast is amazing. Your videos on your YouTube channel are getting better and better every single one that you make, just like when we did open mics, better and better every week. Your Twitter feed is hilarious.

Now, Oswalt is on a much higher plane than I.  Even aside from his being in a different artistic field, he is so much more talented and successful than I am that it's insulting for me to even make a comparison that ends in his favor.  In fact, I think I have to retract the "plane" analogy.  He's scaling a redwood in California while I'm floundering around the mouth of the Mariana Trench.  And, no, he's not directly speaking to me here.  I've not done a podcast.  I don't have a YouTube channel.  My Twitter feed is not that hilarious.  And, as already mentioned, I'm not a comedian and the things that are useful for up-and-coming comedians aren't necessarily useful for me (though there is some overlap). 

That said, it hits home.  I've covered this previously when talking about my decision to self-publish.  More generally, it's about the niche-ification of pop culture as a whole.  Closer to home, it's about publishers having a harder go of it than they'd gotten used to and there's not a lot of reason to suspect the good times will return.  Not exactly as they were, anyway.  And as with everything else do to with the wrecking ball that is the Internet, this is simultaneously depressing and hope-inspiring. 

In deciding to self-publish, I accepted that my dreams of glory quitting my job to write full-time may be just that: a dream.  I tested my mettle against the gatekeepers and wound up on the same side from which I started.  That's not to say I'll never try again.  Or that some kindly gatekeeper won't give me another shot--a vanishingly small possibility, that one.  The end of "luck" that Oswalt speaks of is a little overblown; there's always a pinch of luck in any successful (or unsuccessful) venture.  But luck is a smaller part of the equation than it used to be.  Or, at least, luck's focus has shifted and the concept of "being given" opportunities doesn't mean what it used to.  The odds of my being magically transported into Writer-dom's Great Beyond are dimmer than they might have been ten-to-fifteen years ago.  And I'm fine with that.

Nos Populus has sold a few copies.  That means a few people have been interested enough to check it out and that they've absorbed at least some of what I had to say there, if I did my job right.  And that may not be humbling in the way that a few thousand readers might be, but it's pretty cool nonetheless.  It's not about money.  It can't be.  I'd drive myself mad if it were.

This blog is getting strong, mostly-steady readership.  I don't know why my stats say that I'm especially popular in Russia, but who am I to complain?  Thanks for the support, Russia!  And if a few people like what I have to say here on THDS, that's also pretty bloody fantastic.

The Internet requires everyone to shift their expectations.  There will still be superstars whose success stories fuel writers all around the globe, most of whom will never taste that kind of notoriety.  But those who believe in what they do and who genuinely love doing it will persist.  Because they want to make it and know that they can.  Because they know that writing--done well--is its own reward.  The impetus will be both.

If all I ever amount to is a decently read blogger with a miniature cult-following in Russia and a couple dozen book sales to his name then, well, this is a damn fun hobby.