(or, You’re Good Enough Just as You Are, Assuming…)
Although I’m going to start with Sue Bird’s most excellent podcast Bird’s Eye View, I promise this will have something to do with writing (and arguably all public creativity). To set the scene, though, the week I’m writing this Bird interviews Veronica Burton. Burton is the starting point guard for the Golden State Valkyries, the WNBA expansion team that made an unlikely run to the playoffs this year. She averaged almost 12 points and more than 6 assists while playing every game for Golden State. For her effort, she was named the league’s Most Improved Player.
On the surface, this makes sense.
Burton was drafted three years ago by Dallas. Her time there resulted in limited playing time, 2.5 points a game, and 2 assists, after which she was summarily cut. The Connecticut franchise signed her for a partial contract last year, and she responded with 3 points and 2 assists a game in, again, limited time. At this point, she was left unprotected for the expansion draft. In other words, no one really wanted her.
Then came Golden State, and the explosion that happened.
In the podcast, Bird asked Burton how that happened — as in, what did she do differently to see such a jump in performance?
Burton gave an okay answer, but one that said basically that she didn’t know. She just worked hard, improved as she could, and stayed in shape. In other words, she didn’t do anything differently. She stuck to her basic process.
The answer to Bird’s question is fairly obvious, though.
Given Veronica Burton’s work ethic, I’m certain she has actively become a better player year-over-year. That’s how skill development works, right? For athletes, peak is often in the mid-late 20s. But let’s face it, the main difference for Veronica Burton at Golden State was opportunity. The Valkyries chose to play her full-time. She got comfortable, and her skills became exposed. In other words, a coach saw something in her and gave her a real try.
So I ask, did the quality of her play really take that huge step up, or was she always pretty good at basketball?
I’m sure the real answer lies in the middle, but I’d guess it’s a 70/30 sway toward the latter.
Turns out Veronica Burton is a pretty good basketball player, and probably always has been.
So I hear you.
What does Veronica Burton becoming the Most Improved Player in the WNBA have to do with writing?
It’s this: over the past week, I’ve had two fairly robust conversations with other writers that focused on that ephemeral thing I’ll call “quality” of art (in our cases, the quality of our stories). This is, of course, an idea dangerous for creative people. What is quality, after all? Awards? Income? Great reader reviews? Peer adulation? Or is it something else? Something deeper and more personal? The sense of joy at completion? The knowledge that we’ve said just what we wanted to say? The feeling of satisfaction as a perfect sentence rolls off our brain?
The truth is all over the place, of course, and we all get to have our own answers—which is the point of living now, isn’t it?
But whatever your answer (unless you are creating art 100% solely for yourself, which is just fine, naturally), the fact is, no matter how “good” your art is, there exists a level wherein you’re likely to think it isn’t going to matter if no one really looks at it.
Some months back, I wrote a thing about backlist and discoverability. It was titled “Why 20 Books?” To me, while not a perfect match, Veronica Burton’s situation resonated with this concept. Cutting to the chase, I liken the work Burton put into her game even while people weren’t watching to the work we do as writers to create that backlist, even if it isn’t selling. Burton had to keep working through “failure” — including being cut and then left unprotected (call it rejected and resigned to Amazon ranks in the millions)— before the quality of her play was seen and then exposed for long enough to prove itself.
Through hard effort and diligent study, writers get better over time, too, of course. So the mere act of practicing for the years it takes to make a backlist is useful. But for us, the act of building a backlist while toiling in some element of anonymity is akin to Burton’s three years of bouncing around the league — barely hanging on — until something good happens.
One can only control what one can control, after all.
In the interview, Bird often gets Burton to talk about her sports background, her work ethic, and her goals over time. A theme comes up in which it’s hard to miss that Veronica Burton held herself accountable to do the work. This was her life, really. She came from an athletic family. Sports is what she knew, meaning she understood what she was capable of, and she understood that it was on her to work and to use what she did best. It was on her to bring herself into her game and to excel, and she knew when she was doing that—and, in juxtaposition, when she wasn’t.
I think that’s another lesson here for us. Accountability.
Accountability to put in the work, yes, but also accountability to find that thing that means “art” to you, and hold yourself accountable to hitting it.
Quality matters—however you define it.
Because, for us, that ephemeral thing we call quality is what keeps a reader coming back. And it’s that—the idea that readers will come back to get more of what they like—that is an important difference between a one-time shooting star and a writer with something I’ll call a “career.”
The advantage sportspeople get is that their results wind up speaking for themselves. Veronica Burton took her chance and made numbers that showed her true worth. Now, everyone who is paying attention knows what she’s capable of.
As a writer, however, things are not quite so clear.
Going back to those writerly metrics I listed before, what if you have a few fantastic reviews, but no real sales, no awards, and no profile with your peers?
Is your quality good? Maybe it is, right?
Maybe it isn’t.
Who is to say?
My answer here is that while the reader gets the final say when it comes to all the public trappings of quality, the writer gets the first. At least here in the Independent publishing world.
You get to define what quality means because it’s your art.
Once you’re ready to publish, the game changes to the publishing aspect of trying to put that amazing work you’ve done in front of the group of people who will agree that it is, indeed, amazing. Or, in Veronica Burton’s case, if you find the coach (reader) who believes in you, your numbers can soar.
As an aside for explanatory purposes, I often say that I am not sure if I think something I’ve gone is any good, but I always know if I’m proud of my work. I admit that’s a hard idea to parse out, simply because if I’m proud of it, I obviously think it’s good. When I say that I don’t know if that work is “good,” what I really mean is that I’m acknowledging that I don’t know if you will think it’s good, but that, if you are like me, I’m pretty sure you will.
Not all writers think like me, but I believe writers have something to say, and I believe they say it through their stories. Whether plotted or pantsed, it’s a writer’s job to make their work as good as they can, and that means we have to leave something of ourselves in the work. That’s part of “practice,” too. We have to learn how to be what I’ll call vulnerable. But in the end, I think it’s mostly about gaining confidence. Veronica Burton knows what a good workout is. She knows how to make cuts and make reads. When she screws up, she can figure out why, and take action to fix it.
It’s to a writer’s benefit to gain that sense of confidence, because for a writer, that confidence is part of what makes for quality (whatever that means).
You cannot write a Ron Collins story. I cannot write one of yours. Or (I suppose), if I can write a story of yours, then you haven’t yet found the muscle that allows you to put yourself on the page.
It’s this sense of confidence, I think, that sportspeople like Veronica Burton are building with that work they put in while no one is watching, and it’s that “back list” that time on the court creates, combined with opportunistic moments that can come without warning, that might eventually get a coach’s (or reader’s) eye.
Because while I say quality matters, Burton’s case shows it is also true, to a weird extent, that quality does NOT matter. Or at least that quality alone assures nothing.
Take, for example, that alternate universe where Dallas does not cut Burton, and she spends another two seasons getting six minutes a game behind Paige Bueckers. Let’s say in that world, she never plays full-time, never wins an award, and never finds her way onto Bird’s Eye View to get interviewed. Is she any less talented? No. Probably not. But no one would see her. Until maybe 2026, when she might be given an opportunity only because of the roster jumble that is likely to occur after the league’s collective bargaining agreement gets renegotiated (it’s up this off-season), or get selected in a different expansion draft (as the WNBA adds Portland and Toronto).
As with Veronica Burton, the quality of your work (whatever that is for us) is vitally important, but alone is not enough.
As an artist, the goal is to get noticed often, by the readers who matter (meaning those who like your things). When a writer finds that set of readers, the quality already in the work kicks in.
This is a hard thing to deal with when those readers have not yet come in, but the dynamic remains true. Add to that the idea that, when it comes to readers, there is no single “market,” and you’ve got a double damned situation where writers can get googly-eyed trying to read the tea leaves and figure out which way the wind blows.
This is made worse by the additional burden that, when it comes to trying to learn from peers, none of them is you. This means that the collective is always wrong. The ambiguous “they” will say you “have” to do five things, and (unless you decide they do) not a one may be right for you. It is a fact that, beyond a very few simple basics, this world of independent publishing has resulted in a world where there are no practices any one writer must, with 100% certainty, do. Except, that is, to write and to publish, or, as my daughter says: “Make cool things, then show cool things to other people.”
This means it is up to the writer to decide who they are.
Up to the writer to set their standards.
Up to the writer to decide what business they need to create to support their idea of their art.
Like Veronica Burton, a writer has to work (write) to get better, and like Veronica Burton, in the act of getting better, it is best to have the self-awareness to know that they have, indeed, gotten better. In fact, I think that may be the root of learning. I’ve had many conversations with other writers about what it takes to learn the craft, and I think developing this self-awareness, this inner confidence, is a major part of it.
The words matter, but they don’t, right?
We all want to use the language well, but the goal is to tell stories people want to read.
And here’s the kicker: By that, I mean that you are already good enough just as you are.
We all grow up telling stories. We understand story. As long as you are telling actual stories and as long as those stories are yours, even if you are not selling a lot of books, you are already “good enough.” So the key is to keep going. Keep practicing. Tell stories. Publish stories. Keep finding ways to put your stories in front of the right people.
Wide? KU? Advertising? Promotion?
Sure, I guess. If those are you, you be you.
Local markets? Book signings? Book fairs? Newsletters?
Again, all the better. Keep moving.
Digital? Print? Audio? Special Editions? Yep, yep, yep.
Video? Movies? Web shows?
AI? No AI?
The fact is that you are you, and you get to decide who you are.
And that’s a big deal because, as frustrating as that reader dynamic is, it has always been a good thing. The goal, fortunately or not, is to work hard and keep trying to find those people who like what you do (and ignore the rest).
That’s a big part of Veronica Burton’s lesson, I think. Work hard (or play hard, if you want to define it that way). If success as you define it doesn’t come, keep working (or playing). As worried as she might have been about whether she would stick in the league, I’m guessing that somewhere inside Burton, she already knew she was good enough. If that’s true, the hard part—that amazing part—is that she was able to keep plunging forward through the downswings so that she was ready when the door opened.
Which is cool.
And here’s something else, too. Something great that we creatives have over athletes.
Our clock runs forever.
While athletes age out. We do not. Except for death, we creatives have no time limit. And to get a shade maudlin, as some artists give testament to, even dying doesn’t mean somebody won’t find your work and make it iconic.
So, yes.
You’re in charge of your own work.
Assuming you know how to put stories onto the page, you’re already good enough just as you are.
Quality matters, but it’s not enough.
So move forward. Try things. Listen to everyone, but do only what you think is right for you.
If you do that work, and you build that sense of purpose and confidence in your art, perhaps in the end you will still never be considered the world’s Most Improved Writer, but perhaps you will. Either way, under it all, I’m guessing you’ll know that you’re still just the same person, putting your stories down in the ways only you can.
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