24. Congratulations on Ranking 128th Again

I discovered I was a bestseller. And then time passed.

There’s a zen saying:

For the beginner, mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers.

For the student, mountains are not mountains, rivers are not rivers.

For the master, mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers.

Something along those lines.

Good enough

Years ago, when I was fresh out of graduate school, still wet behind the ears as a writing mentor, I would talk to a new clients about their book project, and often they would confess to me they had always wanted to write a bestseller.

In their mind, writing a bestseller meant something. It was a certain high water line of life achievement. Certain things would probably follow: elbow patch blazers, long conversations in the drawing room with notable intellectuals, being blurbed by Oprah.

Personally, I never really gave a hoot for the whole bestseller thing. I just didn't see the point. I was more hung up about being unique and different. I wanted to be in my own category. However, I understood that earning bestseller status was important for many aspiring writers, so I asked questions so that I could relate to this aspiration. I tried to get beneath the outer effect of the goal to see what the experience felt like from their perspective.

Everyone is different, but there were definitely some patterns.

There was a money component. Everyone wants financial independence.

There was a fame component. But among writers, usually, fame equates to having your name on books stocked in bookstores across the world.

Another pattern? If they wrote a bestseller, it would mean they had earned it. They “did it.”

“Because I did that, I'm good enough now.”

I could relate to that.

What’s the trick?

Many times, while conducting retreats, other guests would come and go, and we would cross paths at dinner or after a reading. They would see all the inspiring writers in the group, then discover that I was somehow the person in charge and ask me, "How did you get this gig?"

The subtext here was clear. "I don't know who the hell you are, and you seem pretty young, so how did you luck out to be doing this for a living?"

When you do something ambitious without having a following, it raises eyebrows. I hadn’t put in the long hours of toil. I wasn’t following their “good enough” script.

I told them the truth. I put up a website, I wrote about what I wanted to offer, I connected with people who were interested in going, and I selected only the applicants who were really good fits.

It was clear that they didn’t believe me. They just knew there had to be some gimmick somewhere.

It’s hard to imagine that someone can just set out to do what they want and succeed on the first try.

Better than bestselling

I told my clients my opinion about striving for a bestseller:

Don't focus on that. What I think matters is that you're present during the process and that you truly put yourself into your work so that it reaches fruition.

Allow the process to impact you and find joy, depth, and fulfillment in making it. Then, it will be most able to impact other people.

If you love your work, you can't guarantee that others will like it or understand it.

But if you don't love your work, you can be guaranteed that either it won't be successful or that the success it reaps will feel empty for you.

None of this, by the way, suggests that I would encourage anyone to stay small and produce work only for themselves.

It’s absolutely important to have specific things to strive for. Big endeavors are more likely to succeed than small ones.

A sleeper hit

Randomly, one day, someone asked me about Deep Freewriting, so I brought up the Amazon page for it so I could send them a link to the book.

On the page, I scrolled down and noticed it was ranked #2 in Creativity — Self Help. I clicked the link and laughed when I saw it ranking next to Rick Rubin’s recent book.

So how did it feel for me?

It made me happy. I thought it was really funny.

I don't know what happened to make it rank highly.

And after awhile it settled back down into relative obscurity.

What I think is really awesome about this is how it was totally random -- I published it years ago.

Which means these things might happen all the time.

This might be the 37th time it's ranked in the top 5.

You might have had an Amazon bestseller four years ago and never noticed it.

That, to me, is what it's all about.

Hopefully, readers like it and it makes a positive impact. For the most part, I’ll never know.

And in the meantime, I will dedicate myself to what feels most alive, true, and inspired. Finishing my sci-fi novel and working on pottery.