44. What it takes to have a first draft people will pay to read

Maybe some herbs and stewed rabbit?

Following through

Inspired—maybe compelled—by the Rings of Power series, I've been listening to the Lord of the Rings audiobooks. I began at the beginning—the Silmarillion—while driving from Marin County to the great city of Austin.

Serkis's constantly emphatic performance was really something to behold, and it made the book possible to listen to for long stretches. I won't be saying anything controversial by saying that the Silmarillion is at phases a dull read.

I myself narrated audiobooks many years ago, and I truly loved doing it. I got into it out of a love of stories and it was an opportunity to really embody them—to get in there and perform each character, embody the narrator, feel the different flavors of each book—anything from Bond-esque crime novels to romance or even Christian-themed thrillers. The latter serving as proof that there's a niche for everything.

I stopped narrating audiobooks because, well, it got more competitive. Covid hit and people were stuck at home, and I guess they were looking for WFH opportunities. People were willing to do it for literally nothing—"revenue share" in many cases unfortunately being basically that for most books that didn't sell more than a few copies. I did the revenue share a few times gladly for books I believed in. You take a risk, but can be worth doing for a book you really like.

Doing audiobook narration gave me a deeper appreciation for audiobooks in general and for what different narrators can bring. It can be bonafide voice acting, more than just reading the words. Andy Serkis definitely brought his best game to the narrator’s booth.

So, after many hours, I made it through the Silmarillion. And of course no one who has read the Silmarillion has only read the Silmarillion. You can't stop at just the Silmarillion. Afterward, I went back to The Lord of the Rings. And now I'm listening to the Unfinished Tales. Here, I may have met my match. With this one, already, I'm finding it trying. These are not really tales that have much to offer for anyone besides the author himself. And that, to me, is interesting.

Study what didn’t make the cut

A good friend of mine always loves to go not only to the best gallery to see the masterpieces, but also to the other galleries, to notice what's different about the two.

Discovering Tolkien as a child was a big motivator for me in wanting to become a writer. It blew me away when I read his distinction about allegories and the need for stories that tell the truth—he calls it “history”—I looked for that kind of writing everywhere. It's rarer than you might think: I found it in koans and philosophy, the Bible, the Upanishads.

I value the writer who is also a seeker. Far more important is the trajectory towards seeking than whether the writer believes they possess the truth. I want my writer to believe that truth exists and to orient towards it, even when that orientation merely takes the form of simply entertaining themselves.

Listening to all this Tolkien, I realize that no small part of what made it so successful is that he worked at this world his whole life. He was certainly willing to do it for free but also valued it highly. This sets it apart from the marketplace full of writing that is vying only to be a commodity, simply looking to win in a competitive marketplace.

I wish that Tolkien had written more theory. The stuff in his forwards and introductions ranks among my favorite of his writing.

But as I said, I’m currently in the slog of listening to his unfinished tales — basically copyedited jots collected from a lifetime of journals and fragments. I paid for this privilege.

So how does a person become someone who people will pay dearly to read your rough drafts?

Look, if I want someone to read my rough drafts, I would need to pay them. I have boxes of journals that I have filled over the years. Even I have not looked back through most of them—yet.

I generally judge that a manuscript is ready for review when it's no longer inconsiderate of me to expect someone to pour through it. Far from perfect, but not a quagmire.

And why is the prospect of reading the average person’s rough drafts such a nonstarter? Mostly because these drafts haven’t done the work of establishing a frame and setting expectations. I wouldn’t have any real sense for how what I’m reading matters, or what it relates to.

When the rare chance happens that I do go through an old notebook—it brings me back and I'll often find some piece of writing teeming with life. It works for me because I was there. I have the context, and so even if it's rough or poorly done it evokes an experience.

So perhaps the thing that sets apart an unfinished piece worth paying to read versus one to avoid reading at all costs is that the first type of writing doesn’t need a translator to become accessible. It provides all you need within the piece itself.

A higher mode of marketing aims to accomplish something like this — to bridge between content and audience and expectation, to frame things in such a way that gives everyone not only what they want but also something new.

I want to create work that gives something to me as I create it and also creates new possibilities for others when they read it.

Any author is going to have leftover bits that never got shaped into anything that the average reader would know what to do with. You can learn a lot about a person by pouring through the unfinished stuff, not just the polished and finished pieces. It’s like how they say “writing is rewriting” — the real work of a writer isn’t just putting down words. It’s living amongst a bazillion of them. The real work of the writer is to write and reflect and live, write and reflect and live— and be open to the process changing who you are.

---

Work with me as your writing mentor

In my work as a writing mentor, what I love most is the process. Ideating a bestseller is exciting—no doubt. But I most love working with writers who value having outside support in the process as their work evolves.

The quest to discover ourselves through writing is infinitely more inspiring than simply charting progress on a predetermined path. You need to have some sense for what the goal is to have any chance of accomplishing anything worthwhile, but the real magic happens in the unknown territories we explore along the way. After all, the most meaningful quests are those that transform not just the work, but the creator as well.

Reach out to me here: