Becoming a professional writer
“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.”
~ Richard Bach
If you are a writer struggling with the dream of becoming a professional writer, don’t quit.
Persistence is the key, and hard work. Set some firm goals for today, this week, this month, this year and for the next five years. Write down these goals – then go for them. Don’t even think about quitting.
Word by word, chapter by chapter, story by story, poem by poem you will become a professional writer.
You may not reap fame or fortune – very few do. Most professional writers who diligently pursue their dreams make a reasonable living from their labours.
And while you are becoming a professional writer you will have the satisfaction that you are doing what you love – writing.
Good writing.
Submit your writing
‘You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you’re working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success – but only if you persist.’
Isaac Asimov
Ouch.
This is one of my failings.
Guilty as charged.
I write, write, write and have no trouble churning out stories and poems and articles. Then they just sit quietly on my computer hard drive or as a printout in a folder. I don’t have a problem with blog posts, but when it comes to sending off my other writing to publishers or to competitions I am sadly lacking.
I think the problem stemmed from a period several years ago when I did send out quite a few pieces to various competitions and print publishers. In a very short period of time I had many dozens of rejections and not a single acceptance. I am talking about more than 30 rejections over a short space of time. It messed with my mind. I became discouraged and subsequently depressed.
I really haven’t fully recovered, which is silly I know. The only way to get published is to send out your best writing.
And when the inevitable rejections come, the story, article, poem or novel needs to go out to another potential publisher. Sometimes the piece needs rewriting, severe editing or other forms of improvement, especially if the previous editor you sent it to gives feedback along these lines. There is no other way.
Note to self: submit those manuscripts!
Note to wife (if she reads this): Yes dear, I will send them off. Promise.
Good writing.
The secret of becoming a published writer
If you want to be a published author here’s the secret. Walk over to your desk. Sit on your seat. Now write. And write some more. And keep writing.
I’m not sure where I found this quote but there is quite a large dollop of truth in that quote. You see, it takes persistence to become a published writer. Hour after hour, day after day, month after month, year after year. There are no short cuts.
Many people are in enchanted with the idea of being a writer, but faced with the sheer effort of writing day after day until they have 50, 100 or 200 thousand words, their dreams fade.
As in many pursuits, there is no secret to success. Hard work, persistence and never giving up are all ingredients to becoming a published writer.
Now – if the dream to be a published writer is still burning brightly, go over to your desk, sit down and start writing.
Good writing – and I guarantee that your hard work and persistence will see you become a published writer.
Writers and their critics
“Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics
is like asking a lamp-post how it feels about dogs.”~ Christopher Hampton
The writer of the above quote has obviously had a few poor, perhaps even devastating experiences with critics. His statement is therefore quite understandable.
Over the years I have had a few critics of my writing. Nothing as distressing as to make a statement like that, but disappointing at the time. The important thing about critics is one’s reaction to their criticisms. Most writers I suspect are like me and have a difficult time remembering that the critic is talking about your writing, not you. To depersonalise the criticism and then to take a cold, hard look at the criticism is often the path to becoming a far better writer.
This idea has been drummed into me over the past year while I have been working on my Master of Arts in Creative Writing. Most pieces of writing, be that non-fiction, fiction or poetry, that we were asked to produce had to be presented at a workshop. The lecturers, tutors and fellow students were the critics. Having your writing critiqued like this was very confronting at first.
After a few sessions I became very comfortable with the process. I quickly discovered that I could no longer be precious about what I wrote. If ten other people are all saying that something stinks, I’d better rewrite it. We often get too close to our work. It becomes ‘our baby.’ How dare anyone say anything negative about it!
If, however, only one or two people say something is not working, I learned to listen, look at the issue raised and then make a decision on whether I needed to rewrite. Often I would make minor changes, sometimes I went with my gut feeling and left it unchanged. The final decision was always mine as the author.
Critics and critique groups can play a very important role in helping writers improve the quality of their writing. I’d encourage all writers to find one or several trusted people they can use to critique their work. Family and close friends are not recommended, unless they are writers themselves. Unless they truly understand what is at stake they are better left out of the equation until the work is published. Then encourage them to buy a copy.
Good writing.
Blogging can make you a better writer
I haven’t written about blogging on this blog about writing for some time now. Of necessity my blogging activity has been rather limited over the last 12 months because of my studies. Getting my Master of Arts in Creative Writing has taken precedence over blogging. Despite that, my three blogs continue to tick along quite nicely.
In the previous 2 years I was blogging daily. In fact, I was almost a full time blogger, which kind of hindered my other writing. Writing an average of one article per blog per day over two years has had some interesting flow on effects on my general writing.
- I am now far more disciplined in my writing life, especially in the amount of writing done each day.
- I am far more productive, turning out far more words per day than ever before.
- I can write ‘on demand’ and rarely wait for inspiration. The act of writing generates its own inspiration and I can also write a lot faster with fewer mistakes.
- Searching for ideas for my writing is no longer a problem, because constant blogging generates a momentum of its own, with one article often generating many more.
- My writing skills have vastly improved. One of my lecturers commented many times that she can see that my blog writing has helped my other writing develop too.
- I have gained a great deal of satisfaction from the comments of readers and the interaction between readers.
There is no doubt in my mind that blogging can vastly improve your skills as a writer. I’m not the only one who thinks along these lines. Jenny Cromie has written an excellent article as a guest blogger on ProBlogger. It’s worth reading.
Good writing.