How Do You Define Success by Pamela Bennett

I would never call myself a “successful photographer,” and yet this photo I snapped at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary several years ago is one of my absolute favorites. I had no idea that lovely anhinga preening its feathers was sitting on a turtle’s back until I flipped through my photos at the end of the day. I marveled at nature’s miracle and was grateful I could experience it over and over again when I gazed at the photo.

As writers, we tend to define success if we become “published writers.” If someone is willing to pay us for what we write and then publish it so that readers can find it, then we must be at least “minimally successful.” Or if we self-published and readers bought and enjoyed our books, then that must mean some degree of success. But are there really “degrees” of success?

I was a staff journalist for 18 years and had thousands of articles published in local newspapers. I won national and state awards for some of those articles. So, I guess I considered myself a successful journalist. Does winning awards define success? Not always. I considered my articles especially successful when readers emailed me, thanking me for writing about a school play to help sell tickets, or a school board article that explained new district initiatives. Or when I had to write those difficult feature obits about the sudden loss of a student. Reading heartfelt letters from family members meant the articles were successful in describing a young, beautiful life that will always be remembered.

My sister and I are writing novels together now, but when we will be considered successful? When we’ve published more than one novel, or two, or three? We published a novel in the Nancy Drew Mystery series many years ago, although the author’s name on the cover was Carolyn Keene. Those books were “work-for-hire” and they hired a lot of Carolyn Keenes! We loved coming up with a mystery for Nancy, Bess and George to solve and #129 The Baby-Sitter Burglaries sold very well in 1996 for Simon & Schuster, as did most of that mystery line. I guess we wrote a successful Nancy Drew novel.

Our literary thriller TWINLESS is in the query trenches right now, and when we find an agent who loves it and then sells it to a publisher, would that make us successful? Or maybe we are successful novelists because we actually finished it, then spent months revising and refining, using beta readers and bootcamps and a professional editor’s advice.

I have a notecard on my desk with a quotation that has always inspired me:

“The only requirement to claim the title of successful writer is that you write as often as you can, as much as you can and to the best of your ability.” —Nancy Christie.

Even authors who have sold several books may wonder how successful they are, if the second book didn’t sell as well as the first, or if the third book doesn’t get picked up by the same publisher, or…

The way the world defines success is always changing, and I think the best way to feel successful as a writer or in life, is to make time every day for the things you love to do, whether it is writing a story, or baking a cake, or running in the park or playing with a child—whatever makes your heart sing!

Hope you all have a “successful” day that lifts your heart and makes you smile.

“In the end, we’ll all become stories.” —Margaret Atwood