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Wannabe authors.—Do you hate them, too?

Tom

Istar
This reminds me of an incident a few years back. This was when I brought a bunch of copies of my book of Valentine's Day cards to Burning Man. I'd had them printed out and thought to put them out as gifts or to leave them in places where people could write in them. It was a little art project of my own that I'd planned out (not very well) and created.

As I explained about this to someone they suddenly said:

So, you're an artist?

My first thought was something along the lines of:

No, of course not, I'm no artist, I'm just me. I'm nothing special.
I can relate to this SO MUCH. Even though I'm going to school for art, I still find it really hard to call myself an artist. When people ask me if I'm an artist I'll think to myself, "No, I'm still just a student." Or "Well, I haven't been in a *real* gallery show yet." Or even "I don't think my work is good enough for me to be considered an artist."

I've found it difficult to break out of this line of thought and acknowledge that I have created art, so therefore I am an artist. I think we assign a lot more meaning to terms such as "artist" and "writer" than they actually encompass. An artist is someone who makes art, and a writer is someone who writes.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
I am going out on a 50 Shades limb... it’s a limb because I can’t read past 20 words of it.

But the notion of “story trumps writing” here is a knee-jerk reaction because of what is a technically horrible writing in a huge success. I would call this a simplistic explanation. Why? Because the story is nothing exceptional neither. Not at all.

It achieved pop phenom status, which is always a mysterious event, because it has a combination of story that clicks for the “moment” in pop psyche while combined with engaging, albeit horrific, writing.

Story doesn’t trump writing, but engagement trumps everything, and engagement may come from many avenues
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I write fantasy, so I have to say I'm not a real writer, I'm an unreal writer.

Tom, there's an easy way to tell if you are an artist: try to stop. If you can't, then you aren't. Simple as that.

I have played music more or less all my life. When the mp3 boom hit in the late 90s I went even further--I wrote my own music, played it and recorded it (lots of loops and step recording, but still....). I made seven CDs worth of that over the course of about a decade. It was great fun and I spent hundreds of hours at it.

When I made the decision to be serious about writing, I had to make a choice. I didn't have two hundreds of hours available. So I stopped playing music, even to the point of giving away my guitars, the synth, all the recording stuff. I was able to stop because I'm not a musician. I play music--still do, very occasionally, and worse every time--and I still enjoy playing music. But I'm not a musician because a musician can't stop.

It has nothing to do with being published or exhibited or performing. For me, playing music is a pleasure. So is drawing. Writing, though, is a fire that never goes out and won't leave me alone. I can't stop. So: I'm a writer. It ain't no claim to fame, it's a condition.
 

Adela

Minstrel
I write fantasy, so I have to say I'm not a real writer, I'm an unreal writer.

Tom, there's an easy way to tell if you are an artist: try to stop. If you can't, then you aren't. Simple as that.

I have played music more or less all my life. When the mp3 boom hit in the late 90s I went even further--I wrote my own music, played it and recorded it (lots of loops and step recording, but still....). I made seven CDs worth of that over the course of about a decade. It was great fun and I spent hundreds of hours at it.

When I made the decision to be serious about writing, I had to make a choice. I didn't have two hundreds of hours available. So I stopped playing music, even to the point of giving away my guitars, the synth, all the recording stuff. I was able to stop because I'm not a musician. I play music--still do, very occasionally, and worse every time--and I still enjoy playing music. But I'm not a musician because a musician can't stop.

It has nothing to do with being published or exhibited or performing. For me, playing music is a pleasure. So is drawing. Writing, though, is a fire that never goes out and won't leave me alone. I can't stop. So: I'm a writer. It ain't no claim to fame, it's a condition.

Don't think you could have described this more perfectly. Come from a family of musicians. Don't play anything. But, of course, I write. It is like a sickness.

One they seem to wish I would shake. Oh well, nothing's gonna change. ;) Now if only I could get them to stop interrupting me.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
If your goal is simply to make money, almost anything you could do is a more certain way of going about it than writing fiction. So I'm not sure there are a lot of writers who got into the business simply to cash-in (apart from, say, celebrity writers with a large built-in audience that existed before they ever set pen to paper, and they're already famous).

If there are writers who were unknown when they started and set out solely for the purpose of becoming famous, I'd like to know who they are and the basis for making that assessment.
 
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