The $3 reminder
On staying ambitious when you're nobody yet
Last weekend, I found a delightful used bookstore. I was meeting some friends at Redwood City and had arrived early. While walking around downtown, I noticed a sagging and dirty sign for the bookstore on a stairwell going into the basement under the history museum. Only open on Saturdays from 10 AM - 3 PM.
You walk down a utility hallway, past a giant foam reel of film, which must have been a decoration in a movie theater. The first room is claustrophobic and cluttered. My initial reaction was underwhelming, to say the least. As you move deeper inside, the store opens up into 3 large interconnected rooms with large displays. It created a sense of discovery and wonder to find this hidden space.
While scouring the stacks, I found a first edition mass market copy of Elantris by Brandon Sanderson, published in 2005. The very first book he had published. In interviews, Brandon talks about how he wrote 13 books before he got Elantris published. Elantris sold OK, well enough to get him another book deal, but not well enough to make a living as a professional writer. It wasn’t until the third book in the Mistborn series, The Hero of Ages (2008), his breakout success which propelled sales for the Mistborn series, did he become a commercially successful author.
In this blog, I write a lot about Brandon’s free YouTube course on writing science fiction & fantasy, because I think it’s the best (and free) educational resource out there for SFF writers. Of course, I’m also a fan of his writing. For publishing professionals, even outside of SFF, they can’t help but remark on how ambitious Brandon is with his company Dragonsteel Books. Many authors are content to let their publishers handle everything. While Brandon built one of the largest privately owned publishing companies in the world.
When I think of Brandon Sanderson today, I think of the publishing mogul, whose every move creates ripples through the whole publishing industry (e.g. popularization of audiobooks, books as a luxury product). Yet, in 2005, he was a new author doing everything he could to break into the industry. Even before he published his first book, he was just as industrious and focused.
It reminds me of the concept in meditation of the beginner’s mind. Bring a sense of curiosity and openness into your practice. When you assume you have all the answers, you close your mind off to potentially useful possibilities. When I picked up the book, it reminded me that Brandon did not build his empire overnight. He still takes risks on new projects, giving each book what it needs based on its unique themes, characters, and setting.
So I paid a whole $3, and I bought it. I kept it by my desk as a reminder. Be like Brandon in 2005. Put everything you got into the project you’re working on right now. Being a professional means showing up and giving it your all. No matter what happens.
