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

[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.