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Do You Really Have What it Takes?

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
These may be a questions you ask yourself as a writer sometimes. Can I write all day long, even if it sucks? Can I figure out my target audience? Will my writing style sell? What differentiates me from thousands of other writers? Can I truly be a professional writer?

That's why we're all here, I assume. To get support and flourish as writers. However, like most jobs, are all of us cut out to be writers?

I was told before I started teaching that it's not simply a job. It's a "calling." Meaning you can either do it or you can't. I feel like writing, or creating art in any form, is just that. A calling. But it's a calling that's unique in that it's really up to the person on whether they make it or not.

Will we all become multi-time best-selling, millionaire authors? Reality check: no. But can we all be successful and widely published? Yes.

The main quality I see over and over again is this: persistence. You don't have to be a great writer, hey, you don't even have to be good to get published. Just write, write, write. Submit, submit, submit. I one-hundred percent guarantee you that someone, somewhere, will publish your writing. Talent only gets you so far. There are tons and tons of great writers out there in the world, but have you read them? No, because they're too afraid to be persistent and commit to their writing. Does this sound familiar? It does for me!

Confidence is a strange thing. If we have too much confidence, we get knocked down off our pedestal. If we have too little, then we never make the leap of faith. Temper your confidence. Make it your shield. Beat back your enemies (doubt, fear, self-loathing) with it. Take all the small victories you can manage. Your shield may be battered and bruised after rejections, near-misses, writer's block, and whatever other projectiles are slung at you, but don't let it fail you.

If you are rejected as a writer, it will not kill you. Will it dishearten you? Sure. Just say, "Well, that didn't work" and try again. Think of yourself as an inventor. The first idea you come up with isn't always going to be your winner. Thomas Edison probably had tons of crappy ideas before he started coming up with awesome stuff. So even if your novel isn't the shining vision you hoped it be (after the 1st draft) then you need to tinker with it some more. Editing is your friend.

So do you have what it takes? If you're here at Mythic Scribes, you obviously care about your craft. So yes, you have what it takes. It's just up to you if you want to be another great undiscovered writer, languishing at your overcrowded desk, or if you want to be another great discovered writer, languishing at your overcrowded desk. :)

This has been a Phil the Drill pep talk. :D
 
I love writing more than anything other than my fiancee and the stories that I am privileged to write themselves. If I could, I would be writing all of the time.

That being said, I do not write anywhere near the amount that I want to, and the reason I don't is because I work two other jobs where the only thing that is part-time is the pay. I say other, because I think of promoting my book, writing, and working on my websites is a third job that I just cannot in good conscience work at as much as I like because the pay is so terrible (for now).

I feel like it is a Catch-22 I am in. If I was able to find the time to write full-time, then I would be able to find the money to write full-time, but since in order to have the time to write full-time, I need money to be able to pay bills, I have to work and no longer have the time to write full-time.

It reminds me of a sci-fi novel I was reading the other day where basically, in order to produce anti-grav technology, they had to have anti-grav technology.
 
It's all in how you define "undiscovered". Sometimes, just one "That was really good" or "Continue this story, PLEASE!" is enough. (Personally, I consider myself to already have been successful, even though I have no works published offline.)
 

Lorna

Inkling
That writing is a calling I agree one hundred percent. I was reading an article the other day that said writers are people that even if jettisoned on a desert island with nothing but a few fruit trees and a solar powered lap top they would still write, in spite of never having an audience because that's what writers do. Those stories have got to be discovered and lived and written down!

I'm currently in a position where I can write from dawn to dusk. I moved back in with my parents and sold my horse and my car so I could live off the savings because I couldn't stand working a 60 hour week for peanuts anymore and I was pining to do something creative. (After graduating with an MA in Philosophy I ended up working with horses...) So I'm at my computer at 7am and I stay there until 8-9pm with a break to go for a walk / bike ride in the afternoon. It's awesome. I could live like this for the rest of my life. Somebody give me a book deal!

As to whether I know my audience... to be honest I don't think it's possible to pin point an audience. An audience doesn't know what they want until they read a book. I vaguely know what I enjoy but I often surprise myself by being disappointed by something I thought I'd like or reading something out of genre I never thought I'd pick up in a million years that blows me away.

Will my writing style sell... before I came to this forum probably not- too obscure / poetic in a bad way but I'm working on that.

I'm hoping my ability to mix mythic figures with a modern context and touch of black humour, combined with ideas based on my philosophy background will make my work stand out. I've got writing group friends / poets who recognise my work from a couple of lines. I think that's a good start.

By the time I'm forty (10 years) I am going to be a professional writer.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
Lorna, you have an extraordinary situation in that you can write all day. That's awesome that you take advantage of it. From reading some of your work, I think it's only a matter of time before you achieve your dream. Finish what you're working on and send it out!
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
I read somewhere that persistence is the one quality that guarantees success. For the most part I think that's true.

I also like this quote by Sidney Smith - "A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage."

It fits in line with what Phil is saying. You have to have courage to stare your doubt down and make it your b****h. Doubt can be an ally, he's just not a willing ally. You have to prove to him that you're the stronger willed combatant.


Lorna said:
As to whether I know my audience... to be honest I don't think it's possible to pin point an audience. An audience doesn't know what they want until they read a book.

I believe that it's easy to know your audience. It's the same person at your keyboard every day. If you write a story that you'd want to read, then chances are others will like it as well. After all, there are others out there in this great big world like you, correct?
 
I read somewhere that persistence is the one quality that guarantees success. For the most part I think that's true.

Nothing guarantees success; it's possible to persist for your whole life and never meet any substantial success. But without persistence, you will certainly never succeed[SUP]1[/SUP].

To put it another way: persistence is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success.

[SUP]1[/SUP] There is the occasional first-time-blind-luck success story, but they are vanishingly rare compared to the number of attempts, and so it is never wise to expect that you can succeed wildly on your first try. Anyone with the faintest grasp of statistics should be aware that if their first attempt doesn't succeed, they are in the same boat as 99.999% of everyone.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
Nothing guarantees success; it's possible to persist for your whole life and never meet any substantial success. But without persistence, you will certainly never succeed[SUP]1[/SUP].

To put it another way: persistence is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success.

[SUP]1[/SUP] There is the occasional first-time-blind-luck success story, but they are vanishingly rare compared to the number of attempts, and so it is never wise to expect that you can succeed wildly on your first try. Anyone with the faintest grasp of statistics should be aware that if their first attempt doesn't succeed, they are in the same boat as 99.999% of everyone.

I think what you say is true to a degree. Nothing truly guarantees success. But I'd bet money if someone was actively writing for 10-15 years and cranking out lots and lots of fiction, they're bound to get somewhere with it. Everyone determines success in different ways, obviously. For instance, if I play darts, I'm not very good at it. But if I stand at that dart board 4 hours a day for 10 years, I'm bound to hit the bullseye eventually.

I think the general feeling among some writers now is that want instant success, instant celebrity, an instant fan-base. In that case, your foot note is apt in that it happens sometimes. However, that's not going to happen with most of us. We have to be happy with our piece of the pie and our audience that we get. And you can only really achieve that by being persistent.

And yes, you can change my name to Phil the Drill Sergeant. :)
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Benjamin Clayborne said:
Nothing guarantees success; it's possible to persist for your whole life and never meet any substantial success. But without persistence, you will certainly never succeed[SUP]1[/SUP].

To put it another way: persistence is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success.

[SUP]1[/SUP] There is the occasional first-time-blind-luck success story, but they are vanishingly rare compared to the number of attempts, and so it is never wise to expect that you can succeed wildly on your first try. Anyone with the faintest grasp of statistics should be aware that if their first attempt doesn't succeed, they are in the same boat as 99.999% of everyone.

I would agree with that, which is why I said "For the most part..."

Persistence is an essential component but other factors like talent, imagination, marketing savvy, etc. will all play a role. Let's not forget about good ol' fashioned luck either. No one knows why some of these authors are runaway successes. If they did then they'd be enjoying the same stardom.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
According to Wikipedia, Emily Dickenson published fewer than a dozen of her eighteen hundred poems in her lifetime. She had her reasons, but it's still a shame. So let this be a lesson, don't be a Dickenson. Send your sh@! out.
 

morfiction

Troubadour
These may be a questions you ask yourself as a writer sometimes. Can I write all day long, even if it sucks?

No.

Can I figure out my target audience?

No, I haven't yet.

Will my writing style sell? What differentiates me from thousands of other writers? Can I truly be a professional writer?

I don't know / I am not published and haven't written a bazillion books. / I doubt it.

That's why we're all here, I assume. To get support and flourish as writers. However, like most jobs, are all of us cut out to be writers?

Not me after answering your questions directly.

:(
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
I'm pretty sure I have what it takes to be a successful professional author. However, I'm less sure I have what it takes to become one. That isn't going to stop me from trying and it's not going to stop me from enjoying myself while I'm at it.
 
If you listen to celebrities, people who have made it big in sports or music or acting or whatever, you find three common traits. They have always wanted to do what they're doing. They never stop practicing. They will give up almost anything else to become successful.

If you want to become a successful writer, take heed. You have to want to be a writer, not just want it, WANT IT. You have to practice constantly. You have to make hard choices.
 
If you want to become a successful writer, take heed. You have to want to be a writer, not just want it, WANT IT. You have to practice constantly. You have to make hard choices.

Bang on. The main choice being to spend a great deal of time by yourself because writing is a solitary activity. In order to endure that level of solitary existence you must DESPERATELY want to be a successful writer more than you want a whole bunch of other things.

What makes it even harder is the knowledge that so few people make it. Maybe 1 in a 1000 writers are picked up by commercial publishers and only 1 in a 1000 of those writers will make a decent living out of it. That means you have to be the 1 in a million...of all those people who actually get it together to finish a novel (realistically, several novels).

Do you have that level of self belief?

To make it a little easier...what level of success will make you happy? If you just want to write for a hobby and try to gradually improve your art - just finishing a novel that gives you satisfaction is success.

If you crave an audience then you need to be published, and let's say that commercial publication or selling (say) 3000 copies of a self-published book is more-or-less the same thing. Would you be happy to know that 3000 people had bought your book?

That's actually a really long way down the road to successful authordom and takes a huge amount of talent, dedication and time. For just 3000 copies.

The good thing is occasionally trying to remember where you were when you first started. The mountain looks awfully huge when you first start to climb it - just finishing a novel seemed like a pipe dream 20 years ago - but looking back now I can see how far I've come.

If I had known, 20 years ago, that I would make it to where I am now (publishing wise) I would have been both delighted and disappointed. Delighted to know that I would have done things like have a paperback on the shelves which was reasonably popular, been interviewed for print and radio on numerous occasions, and most importantly, to have found my natural voice as a writer. Disappointed not to have written a million seller.

Now, I am just delighted...because I've learned how hard it is.
 

Dan

Scribe
I probably won't make it big, for the simple reason that it isn't my ultimate goal. I just want to have fun being creative.

I do occasionally think 'Hey! When I finish this book perhaps I can self-publish and sell some copies' - It's nice to dream sometimes, but if I don't then I won't be disappointed. I'll just move on to other things.

My opinion on finding a target market, writing stories that you think will appeal to other is great IF your only goal is to sell your work. If not then it's really ruining what being creative is all about - Expressing YOUR ideas, your creative talents.. your views on the world.

Sure you may write about a pink pony who battles an evil carrot, and people may not like it, but if you've had fun writing it then I'd call that a success. And who knows, perhaps that feeling of 'Yes, I did it!' may rival being on the best-seller list.
 

Graylorne

Archmage
If you crave an audience then you need to be published, and let's say that commercial publication or selling (say) 3000 copies of a self-published book is more-or-less the same thing. Would you be happy to know that 3000 people had bought your book?

If it were in Dutch? Deliriously happy. That's about the turnover of a major genre author over here and the first printing at a large publisher (mine was a lot smaller; a lot). We're a small market :)

It's (nearly) impossible to be succesful as a genre writer in the Netherlands. So I try to write decent books, keep my publisher happy and try to grow in the art. I'm writing every day, even if only a bit. And I'm translating my work to enlarge my markets. My main work will go via my publisher, but I'm thinking of making the Scarfar Saga (now here on Showcase) a self-published e-book.
So, yes, I want to be succesful. For the rest, time will tell.
 
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Endymion

Troubadour
Sure you may write about a pink pony who battles an evil carrot, and people may not like it, but if you've had fun writing it then I'd call that a success. And who knows, perhaps that feeling of 'Yes, I did it!' may rival being on the best-seller list.

Thats what I always say to myself!
Though that feeling might not help you pay your rent if you want to write for your living.
 
Bang on. The main choice being to spend a great deal of time by yourself because writing is a solitary activity. In order to endure that level of solitary existence you must DESPERATELY want to be a successful writer more than you want a whole bunch of other things.

Lucky me, I love solitude. :)

What makes it even harder is the knowledge that so few people make it. Maybe 1 in a 1000 writers are picked up by commercial publishers and only 1 in a 1000 of those writers will make a decent living out of it. That means you have to be the 1 in a million...of all those people who actually get it together to finish a novel (realistically, several novels).

That implies that there's a maximum of about 7,000 people worldwide who make a living writing novels. I think the number is probably significantly higher than that. ;)
 
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