Help! Should I Write What I Want—Or Should I Try to Make Money?

In the third installment of our Tarot + Craft column, Sarah Elaine Smith gives advice to a writer who wonders if their style is too weird for readers

Dear Braindoggies,

I’m working on a new novel and I’m like, I KNOW I’m a bit weird and esoteric, but most people won’t like that. Should I care???? Obviously not! But also, I LOVE MONEY. What should I do?

ILM

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THE SPREAD

You: Two of Swords

The Problem: Ten of Wands

The Ideal Outcome: Four of Swords

The Advice: Death

The Mood: King of Swords

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Dear ILM,

You’re standing there in the dark of the moon holding your two swords: On the one hand, you could write something commercial and hope it makes a million smackers, and on the other, you could write an esoteric book so bizarre it makes readers scale a mountain just to turn the first page. Which one should you swing? There’s a moment of perfect peace before any decision. And peace—peace is good! But ultimately, not what you want. In order to hold both swords in balance, you also guard your heart. And that’s the problem with seeming serenity: It can camouflage a standstill. You can’t get what you want unless you admit you want it.

Swords represent the intellect, the kind of knowing we arrive at by dissecting, comparing, analyzing. They make unambiguous decisions. A little bit on the chilly side, as you can see in all the Swords here. You’re seeking to make distinctions between what you want to write and what people will tolerate, between doing what you want to do and making money. But underneath these distinctions, you’ll find a number of axioms and beliefs.

You can just as easily use your swords to cut away the illusions that assumptions produce. After all, a sword is a tool; it will do what you want it to. That’s the funny thing about logic: You can apply its machinery to things that make no sense. At those times when I’ve been most depressed, I’ve also considered myself to be most logical.

The problem is simply that you’re carrying too much; too many ideas, too many projects, too many goals for too many people. Too many passions can break your back, even if each one is brilliant on its own. If you worry about what people will think as you write, you’ll also be writing dozens of other imaginary books, each calibrated to a reader with a different tolerance for esotericism and general literary off-roading.

Sometimes we’ve been carrying our burdens for so long that we don’t even notice them anymore. We have no idea how free we could feel, how light we could be. The thing is, even if you don’t want to care about how people might react to an unusual book, you do care, and that’s okay.

The ideal outcome is the Four of Swords, which is an invitation to rest. Put down the tools of thought and passion entirely and allow the tools of dreaming to take over. Leave aside all of your imagined perfect novels. Stop carrying the cross of others’ opinions. The swords will always be there if you wake up and find that you need to defend yourself. You can even sleep with one at your side if you so choose.

And how to stop caring? Death, of course!

Death to old ideas. Death to the squishy shapes, when the bones underneath are what hold us up. I love how this card shows Death walking in flowers and rotting peaches; there is constant rebirth wherever Death treads. In some ways, it’s almost arbitrary to see death as the end of a cycle, rather than fruiting, flowering, or reproductive completion. In some sense, every moment of life is just as inevitable as life’s end, so they could all stand in for one another. The reaper is willing to wear the mask, to set the mood, and walk at the end of the parade.

This is a dark, serious spread. In each one, a human figure is using a sword or a spear: for balance, for burden, for protection. Even death waves an arrow. There’s a sense that the underlying question really has to do with your relationship to your materials. Are you using them rightly? Are they using you? Is mastery possible—or even desirable? As the mood of the reading, the King of Swords indicates that the way to find grace with a tool—or a weapon—is perhaps to not need to use it. The king walks in a sideways sky and holds a sword down at his side. There’s no need to brandish it when you know you could level anyone if you wanted to. After walking in darkness, the moon will rise for you.

WHAT TO DO

Hang up your ideas about what people want, what makes money, and how much to care about it all and go to sleep. Keep a sword at your side in case someone tries to rush you in the night (which is not likely). Outside, the stars will keep spinning in the dark. In the dark of your room, your best ideas will grow sharper and more wicked.

Stop trying to make distinctions between what sells and what you want to write. Ask the questions that will let you rest and dream instead of the questions that won’t limit your options. What would happen if you knew that most people would like this esoteric novel? What would happen if loving money wasn’t an opposition to writing exactly what you want to write?

Every idea and mindset you’re willing to cast aside will become the fodder for some strange, beautiful flower, some wonderful fruit. Even if it is odd, it will be loved by its audience for the simple reason that it is bright in a bleak world.

WRITING PROMPT

The Hanged Man

Unlike all the other figures in this reading, this guy is upside-down and HOT PINK. What would it look like to make what you’re doing as fun as possible? It seems like you’re already enjoying your work, but maybe you think you need to answer to regular literary world concerns when it could just be its freaky happy upside-down self.

Take yourself out to dinner, steal something from a beach, or do some other kind of minor villainy that makes everything feel alive. What does that liberty feel like in your body? Whatever it is, get there before you write.

MUSIC AND POETRY Rx

“Rich Girl Mood” by Dounia

The Malady of the Century by Jon Leon

xxx

Braindoggies

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Thanks for reading, and welcome to this column! Each installment addresses a craft question with a tarot spread and interpretation.

I know that “craft” usually means diction or dialogue or some other mechanical aspect, but here’s the thing: Writing is actually the art of risk. It’s a risk to write anything down, a risk to let anyone read it, and a risk to say what you really want to say.

As such, there are lots of little wars we all have to fight on our way to the blank page, not to mention the doubts and fears we battle when we get there.

Do you have a question for Braindoggies? We would love to hear it! Please send your writing conundrum to Eliza Harris at eliza.harris@catapult.co with the subject line, “Dear Braindoggies”