6 Responses so far

1. 1. Mark Terry on Mar 26th, 2008 at 8:25 am

   She’s good enough — got the SFWA card or Tiptree or Years’ Best credit to prove it — so why hasn’t she “made it”?

   Because nothing is guaranteed and being a good, competent, very good or even very, very good writer doesn’t guarantee anything. The publishing industry is subjective, unpredictable, capricious and based more on a “good hook” and the publisher’s ability to place you and your book within a marketing context as it has to do with being a “good writer.” Even then, building a readership is difficult. Probably the only guarantee is that if you have the chops, develop your skills and persist (probably beyond anything any normal person would call reasonable) that you will have some level of success in the business.

2. 2. Michael Canfield on Mar 26th, 2008 at 10:00 pm

   She’s definitely on to something. I’m chagrined to find writers I’ve known or worked along side for years, writers I’ve seen persevere time and again to finally break-in with a bunch of strong sales, only to give up at some (what would seem to me) much smaller bump in the road. I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but of course I have theories.

   This happens in a lot of fields naturally. In a book called “Guitar Man” a memoir about a guy trying to learn guitar in his thirties, a friend of the author agrees to take him on as a student only as long as he promises not to quit in three months. Apparently many students manage to learn one song in that time, and then lose interest in improving.

   A little success moves the aspirant from the realm of dreaming about the day when she feels the sword tap of legitimacy on the shoulder and in invited to sit at the round table. But the first thing one realizes upon arrival in paradise is that paradise has changed location leaving — in lieu of forwarding address — only vague clues about how to catch up someday again, maybe. Now however, the disappointed dreamer looks back at how much work she’s done and the dream seems more unattainable than ever, or furthermore probably a con and not even worth it. So she decides to stop writing (assuring herself the ‘nobody reads anymore anyway’) and takes up game design. Or golf.

   The key, I think, is to think of every single step as the first step. The beginning is usually a terrifically exciting place to be anyway.

   If I have this story right, after editing one particular sequence in “Goodfellas” (I think) Scorcese exclaimed “Hey! This almost looks like a REAL movie.” That was his — at least — 12th feature-length film and his exclamation tells me he was still surprised and delighted to find himself there, in the medium he loved since a child. Maybe not yet , in his own mind, a REAL filmmaker like those personal heroes whose works he admired but still, all-in-all, not a bad place to find himself.

3. 3. Lee on Mar 28th, 2008 at 4:08 pm

   And maybe some of those writers ought to ffalter in despair. There are too many books, and too many writers.

4. 4. tkersh on Mar 28th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

   Do cellists only play because they want to go to Carnegie Hall someday? There aren’t that many First Cello seats in the world. Do runners only dream of the Olympics? I bike because I love the wind in my hair, the pound of my heart and the rush of my blood, the speed that I create for myself with my own body, with no dreams of ever competing against anyone. I bike because when I don’t, I get grouchy and irascible. Oddly enough, that’s the same way I feel when I don’t write, for even a day.

   So I write, as many days as I can. I write for the same reasons I eat chocolate, go to concerts, dance, swim cold rivers, hike and kayak and make love.

   Publishing seems like a pretty silly, stressful, convoluted and unpredictable way to make a living. Of course I’d dearly love to drop the day job and do it full time. Of course I still feel jealous of those already doing their knightly thing. (Though being accepted to the Round Table didn’t preclude you from dying a horrible grisly death, and probably even hastened it). Fortunately I’m just Zen enough to let go of the outcome most of the time.

   Mark asks on his blog, “Is it worth it?” I’ve never asked the musician who runs through scales for two hours a day or the potter who sneaks afternoons to get her hands in the clay without expecting to see a cent. Birdwatchers and stamp collectors don’t (usually) see their loves as a career path. It’s easier for writers to get wrapped up because we have a gold ring to reach for. But in doing so we risk letting go of what we love about writing in the first place.

5. 5. Carrie V. on Apr 1st, 2008 at 12:24 pm

   It happens because you expect it to get easier. It doesn’t. So it seems harder. Despair ensues.

   Been there. Habit pulled me through.

6. 6. tobias buckell on Apr 3rd, 2008 at 5:24 pm

   Carrie: good point, that’s the odd thing that trips people up. It doesn’t get easier! It’s still hairpulling! LOL.

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