So You Wanna Be a WRITER?

[seawasp]

Posted this as a response in another LJ, but figured "hey, why not dump it up front where everyone can see it?"

The True Facts about Being An Author:

Realize that *I* would be considered a quite successful author. I've got real books printed. For pay. 99% of those who want to be writers -- in any serious sense, that is, not just dreaming -- will never get published except maybe as a couple of short stories.

Of that 1%, over 90% of them will never make their living, or even a serious proportion of their living, from writing. Of the 10% that DO manage to make a living or most of a living from their writing, 99% of THOSE will be scraping along and occasionally doing "okay". The last 1% will actually be well off. Of them, 1% will be rich. And of those, ONE of them will be J.K. Rowling and all the others will wish they were her.

In order to GET published, 99% of all of the writers will have to send in many manuscripts which will be examined for months or even a year or two with NO communication back, and then rejected usually with a bland form note. It may take years to get ONE acceptance -- IF you'll make the grade at all.

I started writing with the dream of publication when I was 6, I started sending things in sporadically when I was 11, I got my first acceptance when I was 40.

Oh, and if you're paying for it, you're not published. Money flows FROM the publisher, TO the author, NO exceptions. Though the money that's flowing may be very, very small. Don't expect to write for the money; I write because it's what I do.

Now, if this hasn't broken your will and driven you to delete all documents you've written, you might be cut out for the writer's life. How are you feeling?

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I'm feeling like I can't stop trying. I'm probably too old to have a really good chance at breaking in, but I'm going to keep plugging away.

If I don't make it? I'll always write. I have to.

[seawasp]

That is to me the symptom of being a true writer. If you'd do it -- or have done it -- without any thought of publication, then be a writer.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

I think I've sold a total of 60 000 words, at a typical rate of $0.05/word at the time... all of it now out of print so no one can see it anymore, and all of it work-for-hire so the rights don't return to me.

Yeah, don't expect to get rich on writing; don't even expect to make folding money. Only do it if you can't imagine not writing.

-- Steve got away from it, and alas lost much of the necessary drive, after such a dismal showing.

[boogieshoes.livejournal.com]

i'm feeling poor. :-p

seriously, one of the things that quietly irritates me with my mother is that any time i bring up fanfic, she says something like 'and maybe you could be a published writer one day'. yeah, maybe, i'm certainly learning a valuable lot of skills writing fanfic... but i'm *far* more likely to be a paraplegic at some point in the future than a published writer, going solely by accident stats alone, and that's if i started writing *only* original fiction and sending it off today. and devoted 8hrs/day to it like a 2nd job.

Mom, i love ya, but you only get to make me roll my eyes so much before i ask Dad to swat ya.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

But if only it weren't for the EVIL AGENTS, then THOUSANDS of unpublished writers would be PUBLISHED and would enjoy FAME and SUCCESS.

I read it on the internet, so it must be true.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

Every now and then, yes, I get a tad discouraged - I am HUMAN, eh? But I can no more stop than I can stop my heart beating. If I am not working on a novel then short stories start popping out like mushrooms. SOMETHING.

Help me. I can't stop. I"m on a rollercoaster and there is no terminus station.

Well, there is. But by the time I get off the rollercoaster I won't really care...

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

The odds are terrible, yeah, but they're also partly in our control. There are many, many ways to increase those long, long odds of publication.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

To start, write a cookbook. There's always a demand for cookbooks.

Now, if you can disguise your fantasy epic as a cookbook, that would be something special.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

Ingredients:

1 (one) boy with unrealistic dreams of heroism
1 (one) girl next door for future romantic interest, "coltish" if you can find it.
2 (two) grizzled, cynical mentors.
1 (one) vast, deadly Dark Lord
3 (three) armies of evil
6 (six) non-human helpers, friends and dispensers of wisdom
horses and sailing ships (to taste)

Knead the boy and girl separately, until tough. Flatten both with mentors until flat, then place side by side on sheet. Roast at 350 until strong.

Chop armies of evil with swords. Spread out on surface, discard mentors, then lay boy and girl atop each other (for first time)

Use boy and girl to split dark lord.

Allow juices to run off before serving.

[wyjoe.livejournal.com]

You know, this could be an idea for an anthology. Kind of like that anthology about six years back with fantasy diseases.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! Now I want to write that!

[seawasp]

The epic story of the great wizard Nero Wolfe.

Modessitt did a lot of food-oriented stuff in his Recluce series, as I recall.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

It's odd how many mysteries and fantasy stories spend a considerable amount of ink talking about the food the characters eat.

Maybe not so much though, considering how every thread on rec.arts.sf.composition seemed to turn into a food thread.

[seawasp]

Insult a popular author and editor in public.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

Or write the boring cold queries that everyone tells you to write.

It's really about the manuscript, though. Learning to think critically about your own work, learning to see your writing the someone else would see it, learning how to tell a story.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

To misquote "The Princess Bride" - "Writing is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something"

Now don't just sit there. Write something! :)

[dsrtao]

I'm feeling pretty good.

[lwe.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm of two minds about how to respond to this.

First off, you're right. The numbers are horrible. I wish everyone understood this.

But on the other hand, in a way, the numbers are meaningless, because it's not random chance as to who succeeds as a writer and who doesn't. Yes, there's a large element of luck, but mostly it's a matter of whether you write stuff people want to read.

Not good stuff; "good" is an entirely different issue. Dan Brown doesn't write good stuff, but he writes stuff people want to read.

It doesn't matter what a writer wants or thinks about his own work; it doesn't matter whether it follows the rules or breaks them, whether it's stunningly original or a farrago of rehashed cliches. It matters whether other people want to read it.

And nobody knows what makes that happen. Good agents and good editors can sometimes identify it when they see it, but nobody's ever managed to really figure out the how and why.

If you have to ask people to read your stories, you aren't going to make it. If they ask you to let them see what you're working on...

[seawasp]

Yes, but for a new writer, they often don't KNOW if people want to see their stuff or not, so the best approach is to understand the odds that they do, in fact, write stuff other people want to read.

[lwe.livejournal.com]

Which is why my first instinct was to applaud your post.

However. In thirty years as a professional novelist, I've taught a lot of classes and workshops for would-be writers, and the single thing I've found most upsetting and wrong-headed about them, the thing that's driven me to refuse to do them anymore, is that the would-be writers focus on the wrong things. They focus too small. They look at word choice and sentence structure and fine shades of characterization, instead of "Is this a cool story?"

The result is thousands of would-be writers with pretty darn good technical skills turning out competently-written, highly polished stories that are just plain boring.

And lots of them get cranky when those stories don't sell. They accuse agents and editors and publishers of suppressing new writers. They look for shortcuts. They cozy up to editors hoping that a personal connection will earn them a sale. They go to workshop after workshop, further honing their already-adequate technical skills, thinking that if they could just get a little better they'd make it. They look for that Big Idea that will sell their story. They want to know the secret to selling.

And they look at the numbers and think it's all a big lottery, and if they just stick with it eventually they'll get lucky.

But that isn't how it works.

The thing is, there really is a secret to getting published -- write stuff people want to read -- but even the people who can do it don't know how it's done, or how to teach it to anyone else.

[lwe.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I went off on a tangent and didn't make my intended point. The way to know whether you're writing stuff people want to read is to convince people (people who read for fun) to read it, and ask whether they want to see more.

Not editors or agents or other writers; just readers.

If they say they're too busy, or they admit they didn't finish what you gave them, or make any excuse whatsoever, you aren't there yet.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

"good" is an entirely different issue.

Only after a point. You have to achieve a certain level of skill before audience demand can even become an issue. (I'll concede that there are rare exceptions, but they are rare exceptions.)

[lwe.livejournal.com]

But the required level of skill really isn't all that high. If you've got a strong enough narrative, details like spelling and grammar can be cleaned up -- though admittedly it's gotta be really strong to make that worth the publisher's while.

For example, I note that an inability to spell didn't keep Raymond E. Feist off the bestseller lists.

(This isn't an attack; I like Ray. He'll be the first to tell you he's a lousy speller.)

Of course, I may have a distorted viewpoint on this. I started writing professionally when I was seventeen and sold my first novel when I was twenty-four. A skill level that looks trivial to me isn't to lots of folks.

[randallsquared.livejournal.com]

"Oh, and if you're paying for it, you're not published. Money flows FROM the publisher, TO the author, NO exceptions."

Hm. So Howard Tayler makes a living by NOT being published. Got it. ;)

By your definition of published, virtually no one will ever be published again by a decade from now. Which is fine, if you like that definition, but wannabe authors should probably not focus on getting a piece of a dwindling pie, and instead figure out how to get some cake.

[seawasp]

In a sense, yes. Though the difference is that in a self-published sense like Howard's, he IS the publisher, so as the publisher he's paying himself -- so he's still following the rule.

It's the PublishAmerica type scams which are violating the rule.

Also, a decade from now the publishing world will be somewhat different, but not in THAT sense. Forty or fifty years from now, maybe. There's nothing that I can see that will fundamentally change the basic function of a publisher, which is (A) to winnow through the almost infinite slushpile and find the few decent ones to publish, and (B) provide the organized outlet and publicity for distribution.

"The Internet" won't solve that problem. It hasn't yet done so for music, and in the case of music the internet version is just as good as the in-store, which is not yet the case for books, magazines, etc.

[cordova829.livejournal.com]

Howard is that 1% below JK Rowling.

However, despite his success in the webcomic arena he was only considered an amateur until his latest book deal. And as deluded as it sounds, selp-published people are generally not taken seriously. And until you can get some "important" people (I put that in quotation marks on purpose) to take you and your work seriously...

[dragoness-e.livejournal.com]

I can't not write. Whether it's fanfiction or repeated stabs at original fiction, I have to write. I get severely depressed if I go for a long time without writing.

I can write code as a cheap substitute, but like sugar-free, low-fat cheesecake instead of the real thing, it's just not as satisfying, and it only blunts the withdrawal sickness. However, they do pay me enough to live on to write code, so I keep doing it.

[xyzzysqrl]

I've come to accept that I'm just not a writer, and have stopped trying. Posts like this remind me why.

[the-blue-fenix.livejournal.com]

I'm a hobby writer. My fanfic is read by up to six people, but they really enjoy reading it and I really enjoy writing it.

I am now okay with this. After umpteen years of meaning to work harder on original fiction ANY DAY NOW after finishing the next fanfic, I'd damn well better be.

OTOH I did make my living solely by my writing for three years. As a reporter for food-industry magazines. And that, it turned out, was just another damn job with bad hours for secretarial-level pay.

[qhudspeth.livejournal.com]

How am I feeling?
Like it's a damned good thing I don't expect ever to get paid for anything I've written. 8^>

But, there's always delusion!