On January 14th at 9:36 p.m. I finished revisions on my 18th book.
There were no trumpets. Only a quiet sigh of relief.
Every book you write teaches you something. Autumn of Axes taught me that writing fiction is more than a paycheck or a popularity contest.
What does that mean?
I doubt there was ever an author who published a book that didn’t hope—even deep down—it would become the next [insert your choice of runaway bestselling book].
And after you experience some measure of success, no matter how small or fleeting, a strikeout is tough to swallow.
The farther you go in your career, the tougher it gets.
By the time we released book two last year, what was originally a four-book series turned into a trilogy, with Autumn of Axes being the new conclusion (RIP Wolf Winter).
Then, about 5 months ago (after we’d outlined and written a first draft), my co-author and I asked each other a question:
Is it worth it to even finish this book?
“Worth it” can mean a lot of things.
In our case, aside from a small group of our hardcore, dedicated readers, nobody cared about the series. Which also meant hardly anyone bought the series.
Initially, we decided to throw in the towel. When I had remorse over the decision, I told myself it was a sunk cost fallacy. After 18 books in 11 years, I was tired. Like, Christian Bale in Hostiles tired.
If you’d asked me back in 2013 when I published my first book where my career would be a decade-plus later, whatever “here” is wouldn’t be the answer.
We like to believe life is an upward trajectory. “After I beat Level X, then I’ll beat Level Y.”
But life and careers don’t work that way. We’re not in a video game.
Instead of an endless upward arc to the finish line, we have dips. We’re not on a rocket ship to the moon—we’re surfing waves.
Sometimes, the tide goes out sooner than expected. Most of us will never get to ride the big one.
What we once thought was a stepping stone instead turns out to be the peak. Our first homerun might also be our last.
At some point we all have to reconcile with that.
In my experience, the only way forward is to figure out what sustains you through the dips and plateaus.
What’s the real reason you’re giving hours of your life to a keyboard and a computer screen?
After sitting on the decision for a few days, I sent this text to my co-author:
“I know we're both busy but in the grand scheme of our careers, finishing a 70k-ish book to complete a series seems like a worthy sacrifice in order to not leave the last book in a trilogy unfinished forever.”
She agreed.
There’s nothing wrong with quitting. But in this case, quitting with the finish line in sight didn’t sit right with us.
And so we finished the book. And we were glad we did.
Autumn of Axes probably isn’t the best thing I’ve ever written. It probably won’t be my most popular book. It probably won’t make life-changing $$$.
But it helped me remember this:
When the money’s all gone, the bestseller run is over, and the reviews are forgotten, there’s got to be something else you’re writing for.