This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 86: What Do Writers Owe the World?

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise to find the time, energy, and courage, you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host, Sarah Werner. And there is a lot on my mind lately. One of those things is how much we owe the world. And by that, I mean, what do we, as writers, owe to our readers, our listeners, our fans? What do we owe random strangers who email us? What do we owe ourselves? What do we owe our peers and other writers?

I feel like there is a lot here that we don’t usually talk about as a writing community. Or, if there’s a conversation about this going on, I haven’t seen a whole lot about it. We are living in a time of unprecedented access. And, honestly, this is great. So, we can tweet at different writers and sometimes they’ll tweet back at us. We can email writers and sometimes they’ll email us back. Writers do AMAs or Ask Me Anythings on Reddit. We have so much access right now to our favorite creators. And it’s really magical and incredible. And it’s weird being a writer and a reader, as most of us writers are, because we’re not only creators, but we are often also fans. And so, I think we experience both sides of this very weird seesaw.

Way back in probably 2015, 2016, when I was still doing interviews for Coffee Break episodes of the Write Now podcast, I emailed a lot of my favorite writers asking if I could interview them. And most of them did not get back to me. Some of them did and said, “hey, I’m sorry. I don’t have time.” And, at the time, I was really, really bummed. I was like, oh, man. Okay. we’re human and that’s how we respond. But, a couple of years later, I find myself in a similar place. And I find myself appreciating the different circumstances of the writers that I initially contacted. And maybe you’re in this place too. Did any of those writers who I contacted owe me a response? Or did they owe me an interview on my show? What are they obligated to do? What are we obligated to do? What do we owe each other?

I want to talk about this today for a couple of different reasons. So, I’m recording this in the infamous summer of 2020. And I’m seeing some interesting things. Some of you may remember that there was a petition after the Game of Thrones TV series ended. There was a petition that was making the rounds, something about getting competent writers to rewrite the end. And this came from many, many upset viewers who did not like the way that the series ended.

I bring that up now, that’s in the past, but I bring it up now because the other day I saw something similar. There is a petition going around on Facebook for a certain author to produce more books per year. I don’t know what this author’s fans think is going to happen. Like are they going to get somebody to go over to this author’s house and like hit them over the head with a frying pan until they write faster? Like I don’t know what they’re expecting this petition to do. And I also think that it’s fantastic that this writer has created something that they love. But also, this writer is presumably a human being with children, and a family, and a brain, and a body that can only produce so much at a time.

I’ve also seen petitions from readers that a certain author change the ending of one of their books. I think that readers and fans have always had certain expectations for the creators of the things that they love. The things that we love become a huge part of our lives, and our identities, and ourselves. If you ever go to a convention, you can see people who a huge part of their identity is wrapped up in something that someone has created. Like they define themselves by, oh, yes. I am a fan of this, or I really love this, or I am a blank nerd, or what have you. And these people are wholey devoted to this creation. And they feel a piece of ownership in it. And, in a way, I think that that’s what a lot of us writers and creators want. We want people to be invested in our work. We want people to love what we create. But to what point? To what degree?

I was so happy when I started getting fan mail and very lovely five star reviews for Girl in Space, which is the fictional podcast that I created back in 2017. But it’s interesting. When you create something, you’re also creating expectations. And soon, I also began to get one star reviews that said I wasn’t producing the show fast enough, that said I owed them the next episode. To a certain degree, we establish our own expectations. So, if I say, Girl in Space is a weekly podcast and you will get an episode every week, and if I let people down, then, yeah, that’s a problem. And they can give me a one star review because I’m not releasing it every week like I said I would. That’s a breach of a promise. That’s a broken expectation that affects my integrity.

You can also implicitly set expectations. So, if a certain author is releasing a book every year, they never went out and made a statement that said, hey, I am now going to release a book every year. But, if a certain author releases a book a year, and then there’s a year when they don’t release a book, some readers and fans are going to feel betrayed by that because they had built up an expectation based on previous activity. And what does that culminate in?

I think really what I’m interested in is, what does that mean? Does it mean the fans and readers are disappointed? Does it mean they feel betrayed? Does it mean that they will seek retaliation? Does it mean they’ll leave your work and never return? Does it mean they’ll tell other people that you’re a bad person who can’t be trusted, a flaky author who cannot be relied upon? What do we owe our fans? What do we, as writers, owe our readers?

The easy answer is that, if you set an expectation, you live up to it. So, if I say, I am going to publish one book every year for the next five years, I should probably live up to that. And, if for some reason, something happens, if someone I love gets sick, if I get sick, if my house burns down, whatever reason, I think that, if you set that expectation, then you need to communicate changes in those expectations and send out a newsletter or put an update on your website that says, “hey, this happened and, unfortunately, I am not able to go through with creating a book every year for the next five years like I said I would. Thanks for understanding, et cetera, et cetera.” I feel like that’s fairly straightforward. You set expectations, you live up to those expectations. You protect your integrity. You do what you say you’re going to do. That’s all very good.

But what really gets me, what really confuses me is implicit expectations or expectations that you don’t set consciously. So, if you start responding to every single tweet that you receive as a writer, you start and maybe there’s one a day or one a week. And you’re like, oh, thanks for the shout out. Thanks for recommending my book. That’s really sweet of you. And then, that grows to two a day. And then, that grows to ten a day. At what point do you stop responding to your fans? Or do you stop responding? Is that the point where you hire an intern or an assistant to answer people? Do you owe them a response?

I’m talking about all of this outside of what we want to do. I want to respond to every single tweet that I get. Like that’s not even a question. I want to respond to every single email I receive. That’s also not a question. I want to help people. I want to continue providing this podcast for free. I want to keep speaking for free at New York Comic-Con, and Dragon Con, and all of these other things I have coming up. It’s not a question of wanting to. I want to help. But, at some point, some turning point, some invisible gradation, your full time job can very quickly go from being able to write for two hours a day in the midst of all your other work, to using those two hours a day of writing time to answer emails, and tweets, and Instagram DMs.

This is really hard for me to talk about because I love community and I love making myself accessible. And I think a lot of other writers, maybe yourself included, feel the same way. I want to help people who need help because that’s how I got to where I am. I’m paying it forward. And that’s important to me, but how much giving is enough? And how much giving is too much? And at what point do we go from full time writers, or part time writers, or hobby writers, or however amount of time you get out of your day to write, to full time email answers, and full time responders, and full time helpers, and full time supporters of others’ work? Again, this is hard for me. There is a lot of guilt wrapped up in this. There’s a lot of empathy. There’s a lot of understanding, if I don’t respond to this email from someone, they’re going to feel like I don’t care about them. And I do care.

But, at the same time, I have a deadline for this thing I’m writing, this project I’m working on. And I’m getting paid to write it. And I’ve signed a contract. And the people to whom I am now financially and contractually obligated to create for don’t want to hear me say, well, I had a lot of emails to answer, so I wasn’t able to write today. Let’s try again tomorrow.

I recently hired an assistant. And this was a really big step for me. And my assistant is wonderful and takes care of my four email accounts because, yes, I have too many email accounts. She takes care of this for me while I am supposed to be writing and creating the things I am financially and contractually obligated to create. And, for the most part, it has worked really, really well. And I’ve really enjoyed a little bit of a sense of freedom. But I also feel like I’m letting people down who need help. And maybe this is some kind of martyr complex.

I gave a TEDx Talk at the beginning of 2019 about how we scale our ability to give and how we give without hurting ourselves. And this is all very deeply rooted in who I am. I was raised with a mind and a heart for service, for serving others. Other people always come first for me. But the problem is there are so many other people and there’s only one of me. Well, now, plus my assistant.

And here’s the thing. A lot of this is just my ego. A lot of this revolves around me feeling special and important that people ask me for help. And I’m going to fully admit that. People coming to me and asking for help in getting their book published, in finding an agent, in marketing their work, it’s very flattering. It’s very nice because it means that I’ve made a mark and that people see me as an authority and as someone they trust on a subject. And that means so much to me. But the information that they’re asking for often can come from people with more knowledge and experience than I have.

I received an email last week from a very angry man. Well, he wasn’t angry at first. At first, he was very nice. And he said, hey, as a fellow creator, I would love to pick your brain about these questions I have. And my assistant sent an email back that said, great. Sarah does these free 30 minute consultations and would love to sit down and answer as many questions as she can. And this is when the man got angry. And he wrote back something really hurtful about my assistant and about myself. And, even thinking about it right now, like my heart rate is accelerating and my palms are sweaty. And I feel a little bit like I’m going to cry. But I won’t because I’m a professional. Right?

But I had never met this man before in my life. But he said in very less than kind language, how dare you deny me your help? How dare you? How dare you try to placate me with your marketing scheme. I am a peer. And I was simply hoping for a peer to peer chat, creator to creator. I’ve talked about before on this show, the negativity bias where you can get 100 five star reviews for your book and you get one, one star review that’s like, everything is terrible and this author is a jerk. And what are you going to remember? You’re going to remember that one star review. It’s going to stick with you. I’ve gotten some one star reviews that I can recite word for word. And this gentleman’s email, I’m going to carry this with me for a long time. I don’t want to, but those words are so hard to detach from yourself. So, I don’t know. What do I owe this angry man? He seems to think that I owe him something.

I started doing free 30 minute consults because… well, what I was doing, I wanted to give people a way to chat with me, but also set a boundary on my time because I was getting to the point where I was doing just phone calls all day with creators who wanted help. And I started charging for my time for consulting. And I realized that, yeah, a lot of writers, and creators, and podcasters don’t have that kind of money and they can’t afford to pay me. So, I said, well, maybe a compromise is I’ll do a free 30 minute consult and they can get full access to me. They can get full access to whatever knowledge and experience I have that could be valuable to them. And that’ll be good.

But I think I’ve found a little bit that whatever you give, it’s never enough. And that can very easily turn into I’m not enough. Because I can’t. I’m not. I see some writers who are out on Twitter all day, Neil Gaiman, Rebecca Roanhorse, Gail Simone, Chuck Wendig, Jeff VanderMeer, Roseanne Brown. These writers are out on Twitter all day responding to people. I don’t know how they do it. When do they have time to write? I can’t do that. And maybe you can’t do that. Maybe you are pushing yourself so hard right now just to get one Instagram post or one tweet out a week. And, at some point, if you give, and you give, and you give it’s possible to start feeling a little bit resentful.

And I’m thinking right now, way back in April, 2015, episode number nine of the Write Now podcast is called Say Yes to Writing. And, in that episode, I talk about how, in order to say yes to writing, you have to say no to other things, because we only have so much time and so much energy in one day. And sometimes saying no can mean actually saying no. Like, yeah, sorry. No. I can’t meet with you on Thursday. I need to be fully committed to my writing time. But saying no can maybe also look like setting boundaries, which I, and maybe you, are notoriously terrible at. Because I love people, and I love you, and I love helping. And I want you to write. I want you to publish. I want you to live out your heart’s dream of becoming a writer. But I think I have to start understanding that I can’t do everything and I have to really be careful. And I have to be really selective about what I do and how I can provide the most help to people with the limited time and energy that I have.

And, probably more importantly, I need to not let the one star reviews and the angry emails get to me. Maybe I need to say, hey, if you want help, I have the Write Now podcast, which I release weekly. My assistant has helped me get back on the schedule so that I can fulfill the expectation that you have of a weekly podcast. You can join one of my two Facebook communities, I Am A Writer With Sarah Werner or Seriously Successful Podcasters. One is for writers. One is for podcasters. You can join my create-alongs that I do on Wednesday evenings at 7:00 P.M. Central, where we do a little bit of chitchat about writing, and we talk about what projects you’re working on, and then we write together for 45 minutes to an hour. And then, we come back at the end and we chat about it. You can message me via Instagram or Twitter. But, outside of that, boy, and I just feel so inadequate and so awful saying this, but I can’t give anymore.

Again. I realize this is very like me, me, me, me, me. But I think that, as a community of writers, it’s very us, us, us, us, us. And, if you’re not dealing with this already, with people wanting things from you that you never promised to give, or that you don’t have time or the energy to give, you will soon. What do we owe our readers? What do we owe our listeners? What do we owe our peers? What do we owe each other? How much giving is enough giving? How much giving is too much giving.

These are, at least for me, some of the hardest questions in writing. And I’d be really curious to hear your thoughts. Do you think it’s fair that people can petition a writer to write more, to write faster? Do you think it’s right? What would you do if you received a petition from your fans saying, yeah, sorry. I’m going to need more and I’m going to need it faster. I mean, I think that, at first, I’d be flattered. But then, it would be like, where am I getting all this extra time and energy. And is somebody, are they going to pay for rent? Are they going to pay for food while I do this? Like I have to make money. Or, if you have kids, okay, but who is going to take care of my kids while I’m doing this?

How seriously do we take those requests? I mean, obviously, I take them very seriously. But how seriously do you take them? How good are you at setting boundaries? What would you do if you received a petition to change the ending of a book that you published? How would that make you feel? Would you feel in any way obligated or indebted to your readers and fans to do it?

So, I would love to hear your thoughts, your answers to these questions. You can answer them out at the show notes for today’s episode. So, this is episode 86 and it’s called What Do Writers Owe the World? And, if you go out to the show notes for this episode, which are out on my website at sarahwerner.com, that’s S-A-R-A-H, W-E-R-N-E-R dot com, and you navigate to the show notes for this episode, you can scroll down to the bottom and there will be a place where you can submit your comments. And I do read each and every single one of those comments. I try to respond to all of them. So, I’m very curious how you deal with this.

And, in the spirit of today’s episode, no, you are not obligated to go out there and let me know your thoughts and answers. But I think it is something that it’s important for us to think about and understand for ourselves, especially as we move forward into setting boundaries for ourselves as writers, as creators.

So, what do we owe the world as writers? I think we owe our best creative work. And I think that we owe ourselves our own best creative work. You’ll notice that, in today’s episode, I don’t think that I asked that question: what do we owe ourselves? I can tell you, I owe myself. I love writing. And I owe myself time writing and creating. And that’s one obligation that I have not been good at fulfilling.

So, thank you for listening to me. Thank you for listening to this episode. I hope that it was helpful to you or that it raised some interesting questions for you as a writer, as a creator. This was just something that I struggle with daily and I needed to talk about it. And so, I’m grateful that you’re here with me. I’m grateful that you’re listening.

And, in addition to thanking you, I would also like to thank my amazing patrons out on Patreon. Patreon is a secure party donation platform that allows you to give a dollar per episode, two dollars per episode, ten dollars an episode, a million dollars an episode, whatever to support the work that I’m doing here at the Write Now podcast. Special thanks go out to patrons Amanda King, Amanda L. Dickson, Julian Vincent Thornburgh, Laurie, Leslie Madsen, Michael Beckwith, Regina Calabrese, Sean Locke, Susan Geiger, Tiffany Joyner, Leslie Duncan, Maria Alejandro, Rebecca Werner, and Sarah Lauzon. These amazing and incredible people help make it possible for me to give you a weekly episode of the Write Now podcast. And I am so eternally grateful to each and every one of them. So, thank you.

If you’re interested in becoming a patron, you can simply go out to sarahwerner.com and click on help support this podcast. Alternately, you can go out to patreon.com. That’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/SarahRheaWerner. That’s S-A-R-A-H, R-H-E-A, W-E-R-N-E-R. And you can make your pledge. Thank you again for joining me in today’s episode. I hope that you go forward and you think about how am I giving? What am I giving? Why am I giving? And what do I owe myself? I think that’s the question that’s going to stick with me moving forward throughout today, and then throughout the rest of this week, what are my priorities? What’s important to me? And I’d encourage you to think about those too.

And, with that, this has been episode 86 of the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner. And I’m going to go work on the writing that I need to get done.