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Creative WritingHow the Writer Survives
by:
Seth Mullins
So it’s your dream to write novels? Be a freelance writer and do a living off of your articles? Or mayhap you nurture an ambition to write and sell enough short fiction to put bread on the table, like those writers of the golden age of the pulps?
Well, those are all noble dreams to have. I’m smitten by the writer’s glamour myself. As well I’m grateful for the others who were, those authors whom I love to see and return to time and again. I’m grateful that they possessed not only their artistic vision, but as well the sheer stubbornness and wish to bear on and see their dreams become reality.
So we’ve settled on the fact that we want to be writers, and that no different dream wish do. Now let’s take a look at what this is likely to mean in terms of the sacrifices we’ll have to do on
the way.
1. Misunderstanding.
Do no doubts just about it – even as those nighest
to us may not understand or even as sympathize with our dream. Young authors still in school or living at house should prepare themselves for the proposal
of well-meaning but frightened parents; which typically wish be encouragement in ANOTHER direction. With all that time spent on the computer, you could build a career as a typist. How just about data entry? Web design? They have a lot of great courses at the college for that.
Adult writers can oftentimes expect a similar reaction from their significant others; tho'
in this case, the motivation power be being different. Why don’t you pursue thing
that there’s a Futurity in?
Folk who give this sort of proposal
are doubtlessly well-steeped in all the cognitive content of the suffering artist. Parents don’t want to see their children go through it; husbands and wives aren’t all that eager to see their spouses get caught up in that trap either.
But the real question here is this: are YOU available to believe in yourself enough to bear on even as in the face of this negative (though well-meant, perhaps) feedback?
2. A societal life? What’s that?
To finish a novel could easily take up a thousand hours or much of your time. That means all but three hours a day if you want to get it done in a year. And this is a modest estimate. Now mayhap you’re willing to give up T.V. time, leisure reading, evenings out with your sweetheart, etc. You want to be a author
that badly. But wait! The trials don’t finish there.
Your friends and family wish want explanations. WHY can’t you go over to Lucky’s and hang out tonight? Why do you ne'er
pick up the phone at night (or in the morning or whenever you write)?
Now it’s one thing to have college papers to write, or mid-terms to study for, or overtime hours at work. Those are all socially acceptable obligations. But tell your friends that you’re staying in every evening to write and probably the better reaction you can hope for is a blank stare.
Are you available to say: “Too bad if they can’t understand”?
3. Rejection upon rejection.
Let’s say we pass the 1st two hurdles. We don’t listen to people’s attempts (however well-intentioned) to advise us, and we plug away at our stories even as tho'
it means we can’t enjoy the leisure and down time of “normal” people. We put those thousand-odd hours into our work, and once
it’s all done we’re proud of it. We write query letters, mail submissions, and sit back and dream of that fat advance, the book language tour and the flick offers.
Then the inconceivable happens. We get one return letter after another, and all of them are variations of this: “Thank you for causation
us [our work]. It was so
interesting, but not quite what we’re looking for at this time.”
This happens to everyone. It has happened to me many
times, and if it ne'er
happens to you then you wish be entered into the history books of publishing. You may reach the point wherever
a PERSONAL rejection letter instead of a pre-printed rejection feels like an accomplishment.
Remember the dream. Remember the passion that drove you to devote all those hours to writing in the 1st place, at the expense of your societal life and leisure. Then send your activity out again, because you didn’t pass the 1st two tests for nothing. Once
and if you get feedback, see if there’s thing
constructive inside
it and discover for next time. You’ll be another rung up the ladder to success.
We writers survive and find our way because we weren’t meant to BE thing
else.
Seth Mullins is the author of “Song of an Feral Land”, a novel of speculative fantasy in lawless frontier territory. Visit Seth at http://authorsden.com/sethtmullins
This article is free for publication
Seth Mullins is the author of "Song of an Feral Land", a novel of speculative fantasy in lawless frontier territory. His prose
includes dissertations on the craft of writing, as well as the inner meanings of mythic and fantasy stories.
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