There are many cases of people who have great success in life but are unhappy because they can’t do something completely different. For example, both Mariah Carey and Madonna were huge pop stars. Their albums went platinum, their concerts sold out in moments. But neither one was satisfied with their musical success. Both of them pursued movie roles where they found themselves panned by critics instead of lauded for their efforts.
There are authors who have success in a genre who want to break into another genre. Until they ‘cross over’, they won’t feel successful. I once sat in an audience and listened to a wildly successful romance writer describe how she didn’t consider herself a romance author. What? She wrote a time-travel novel, all the while thinking she was a science fiction writer. When the publishers got a hold of her book, they determined that they could market it as romance. She didn’t think of it as romance. When she got accolades, she stuck her foot into her mouth trying to explain how she wasn’t a romance writer, even though her book was marketed as romance and she, in fact, wrote it.
As an unpublished author, I find these anecdotes fascinating. When you aren’t published, you think anyone who is, is successful. It’s hard to imagine that a writer wouldn’t feel successful unless some other, more obscure wicket is crossed.
Did Elvis long to make schmaltzy films? Or did his agent book him into movies when he considered himself a successful musician?
Writers are allowed a great deal of leeway in their creativity. No one will tell a writer that they can’t write something… Tony Hillerman left his successful Navajo cop franchise to write a book set in Southeast Asia. He did it. He must have wanted to write that book. The fact that most of his readers wanted to know what Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee were doing must have come as a surprise to him. Or not. His next book was back in the Reservation.
Are we just so focused on what we don’t have that we long for it? Is it a ‘bucket list’ kind of deal? If I wrote successful historical romances would I pine to knock out that mystery novel set in South America?
As I ponder this, I wonder why the authors don’t just write what they want and then try to sell it. If it doesn’t sell, then the readers are trying to tell you something. Possibly you OWN medieval romance and shouldn’t jump genres. Maybe your command of men in kilts is such that THAT is what your readers expect.
I believe that writers should write whatever they want. I also believe that, as a reader, I may have some expectations from an author that has successfully created several books in one genre. What do you think? Does it surprise you when you hear that someone says “I don’t think I’ll be successful until I _____.”
Megan Fox, voted the most sexy woman alive after her roles as Mikaela in both Transformers movies, said she wouldn’t feel successful until she’d made a “non-Transformers” movie. She made two movies before she starred in Transformers. Do you think she meant, “I won’t feel successful until I make a BLOCKBUSTER film that breaks boxoffice records which is not a Transformers movie?”
What do these successful people want? Why aren’t they happy with the success they have?
–Sandee Wagner
