Robby Benson once said that there were five stages to an actor’s career:
1. Who’s Robby Benson?
2. Get me Robby Benson
3. Get me a Robby Benson type.
4. Get me a younger Robby Benson.
5. Who’s Robby Benson?
I’m sure many of you are asking yourselves questions 1 and/or 5 right now, although possibly with a little more emotion: Who [the f—] is Robby Benson? Needless to say, he was – I guess I should say is – an actor. However, I believe he accurately sums up the stages that thespians go through over the course of their working life. More to the point, I think his truism regarding the career arc is broader than just acting and can be applied to other fields – including writing.
For example, we authors usually start off toiling in obscurity. If we’re lucky, we get a little bit of a reputation and find ourselves slightly in demand. (Maybe we even inspire other writers.) Later, we begin fading and ultimately find ourselves once again unknown. Thus, for authors, I suppose it will be something like:
1. Who’s Kevin Hardman?
2. I want a Kevin Hardman bestseller.
3. I want a Kevin Hardman-type book.
4. I want an updated take on Kevin Hardman’s books.
5. Who’s Kevin Hardman?
If I had to peg where I currently am on this scale, I’d probably say No. 1. I mean, I’m blessed in that my books tend to do well (over the weekend Incarnation hit #1 in one of the superhero categories), but I’m still far from a household name. But that’s good news in that it means I have lots of room to grow. Frankly speaking, that’s how I – and hopefully most other authors – view it: being unknown simply means that the sky’s the limit in terms of how far we can currently go.
But again, I don’t think it’s limited to one career field; I feel it’s applicable across the board. So, if you haven’t gotten quite as far as you’d like in your current career, I hope you’ll see that as meaning there’s ample opportunity to grow and succeed. Not that it will be easy, but as Einstein once said, “Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” Personally, with respect to writintg, I’m focused on finding and exploiting that opportunity. Hopefully you’ll do the same in your career field.