Sydney Avey
Dynamic Woman — Changing Times
The Narrow Path: A different journey
Just when I assure myself that my ten-year writing plan and slow-build marketing strategy will work well for my
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purposes, I open an e-mail and read about a hard-working author fighting feelings of failure because her first book sold less than 16,000 copies. I know better than to compare my experience with hers; she’s playing in a six-figure world where the stakes are high. Shake it off.
I close the email and page through the Wall Street Journal Books section. My eyes go right to this headline: Family Guy Becomes Novelist Guy. Reviewer Alexandra Alter reports that Seth MacFarlane’s comic western “packed with raunchy, twisted jokes that push the boundary between spit-take humor and poor taste,” will be a film three months after it hits the bookshelves. Well good for him. There is obviously a huge audience for “prose peppered with infanticide, child brides, bestiality…” etcetera, etcetera. Shake it off.
My eyes travel down the page to a review of six-figure-deal Sally Green’s debut novel “Half Bad,” about battling covens of witches. Her publishers believe the young-adult trilogy will attract older readers as well because of its dark themes. The combative anti-hero smokes, swears, is barely literate, hates technology and sleeps outside. (I think this would qualify him for several spots on any number of spectrums described in the DSM-5.) Green has absolutely nailed the formula for success.
Negotiating the narrow path
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At this point I remind myself that the path I have chosen is a narrow one. Not many readers go to the New Fiction shelves at their local book stores looking to be challenged on themes of spiritual growth. (The very words conjure boring hours in Sunday school looking at badly dressed flannel board figures.)
My challenge is to draw readers into stories that change hearts: hold up the mirror that reflects the good and evil in our souls; deepen our compassion for the difficult people in our lives; examine a full range of emotions—from self-loathing we secret to wonder we experience when we encounter the mystery of liberating faith.
Walking a narrow path is like tunneling under the broader way, wondering what the terrain will look like when you surface. Billboards posted on the broad way tell you what to expect. There are formulas for success. On the narrow path, when you aren’t digging for hidden treasure you struggle to keep the trail under your feet so you don’t stray into areas that lead nowhere. It’s a different journey.
So here’s my question. Is there a narrow path on the broad way, or do the roads diverge, as Robert Frost suggests?
Love this… It is a narrow path entry unto its own.
Wow, Sydney! I am struggling with the same issues.
Read this in “Jesus Calling”, and gained new perspective.
“Stop judging and evaluating yourself, for this is not your role. Above all stop comparing yourself with other people. This produces feelings of inferiority or pride, sometimes a mixture of both. I lead each of my children along a path that is uniquely tailor-made for him or her.
Don’t look for affirmation in the wrong places: your own evaluations or those of other people.”
So we get back to the issue of why we are writing. What motivates us to use the talent God gave us? The affirmation and feedback we need will come from the right sources. Continue to do what you are born to do, and plants those seeds of light along your pathway, that others may be refreshed with courage and conviction.
“Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
Keep making a difference.
Thanks for that reminder,Mary. I have to revisit my motivation continually, which is why I finally settled on purity of heart as my challenge for the year. Ooohhh boy!!!
I know how you feel, Sydney. Although I don’t write spiritual fiction–I write fantasy–I also haven’t found my readers yet. My stories are not dark enough and not romances either. No vampires or werewolves or sex. Just people’s stories in a fantasy world. They are not what the majority of readers expect, so no success, alas. I hope there are readers out there who would like my stories, and the same applies to you. Your readers are there. Our task is to find them.