Fake It While You Create It

Fake It Until You Make it is a common refrain for anyone trying something new. When I started BookEnds there was a lot of what I assumed at the time to be faking it just until I could make it. What I realize now is that I was only faking it so I could create it.

Fake it until you make it implies you’re following someone else’s rules or copying someone else’s creation. One of the things I love most about BookEnds is I never had a blueprint to follow. Having never worked at an agency I didn’t have a preconceived notion of how an agency was run. I still don’t. Every day I’m creating my own rules and my own company.

Writing Your Own Course

When starting something new–a job, a writing career, parenting, or even a marriage–we lean on the experiences of others to know how to do things. And that’s important. There are certainly times I have leaned on other agents for guidance. There are also times I looked at other agents or agencies and without knowing anything but what I saw on the outside, created my own idea of what I would learn from them.

And the rest, the rest are things I just wanted to do and try. Long ago I remember a high-level agent publicly criticizing agent bloggers. They thought agents should just be agenting. I thought agents should be advocates for all authors, not just those we represent.

I blogged. Then we YouTubed. I built a business I want to work for. I do things differently. Very differently. I do things my way. I’ve built a company, with the active support of my team, based on what I want it to be, not on what others tell me it has to be.

You should do the same with your writing career.

Sure you’re going to look to other writers for ideas and to see what works or has worked for them. But to be truly successful you need to write your own path. Fake what you don’t know while you create something in a way that best defines you. It’s not faking it until you make it. It’s faking it while you create the career you want.