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Are You an Artist, or a Craftsman?

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This is going to come across as attacking and demeaning. I don't mean it that way. But I have to be blunt.

You're going to an extreme. A certain degree of caring about an audience is required to prevent one from filling their works with self indulgent tripe. But you are creatively lost if your mind is full of demographics, statistics, social justice, real world politics, money instead of the conventions of narrative: Emotion, philosophy, development, design, conflict, choreography, iconography, meaning. These are the things that fill my mind. My job isn't that of an agent, or an activist, or a preacher.

If you can't do both, I question your seriousness and commitment.
 

Russ

Istar
I want to sit at their internetty kneee and listen to their wisdom. Russ, can you convince them to do an AMA here on Mythic Scribes?

If I knew what an AMA was I might be able to tell you...:)

For sure I know which conferences you can find them at and can even get you into all of the cocktail parties...

Also if you are really serious I could direct you to audio recordings of them talking about how the business works...but I don't think they are free...
 

Annoyingkid

Banned
I am not being extreme...I am just quoting you.

If you were quoting me, you would notice I said: if you are always thinking about who you are empowering, who you are offending be it in terms of religion or identity politics, who you are marketing to, maximum sales, and so on , then you are lost creatively.

By the by, how much do you think people who bang out harlequins make? Do you think that is the way to get rich or even make a decent living?

By far your best chance of, as romance is the most read genre.

Many authors think about their audience all the time and the business model.

In other word's they're slave to formula to get a salary they could have gotten a different way. So if you're writing to business model, that is often an argument against diversity in lead roles. You tack on a romance because market research says the main lead and the opposite gender lead should be around the same age and kiss by the end. If they're mother and son, or brother and sister or father and daughter, you should change it because demographics indicate teenagers buy into romance more than platonic love between leads. You can't have a male hitting a female because it's offensive to the market. Resulting in a ton of hamstrung faux action girls who are all talk and no action.

You get writers asking me about what microaggressions to avoid against black people. I say I don't care about microaggressions and stop thinking you have to tread on eggshells. Don't write them like a minstrel or golliwag and you're good. Have some creative conviction.

I respect the writer who thinks who gives a shit and does what they want. If you don't make seven or six figures, or even five, so what. In the western world, you ain't starving. What were you doing before publication? Starving? No. Most writers are quite middle class and doing alright. People don't use writing fiction and the hope of publication as their way out of poverty.

For instance James Patterson spends a ton of time thinking about the business end of publishing and writes to it. So do many other successful authors.

Another example is Lee Child who said this:

What he said is just sad. Once you say what you have to say in a series, you stop. You like money that much you're gonna go on forever until people are sick of it? Why? Cos people want? So the guy's basically just a literary vending machine.

How many zeroes do you think he has on his advance check?

I don't actually care. When I brought up that trans person (you say that like I'm picking on someone weaker than me) I'm talking about the vast majority of young people in the west who write, the college educated, socially conscious people who are too scared to take risks either because everything they make needs to pass the social justice test first as in Old Riley's case, or they got it into their head that they need to do X, Y, Z to be successful. They need to follow this that and the other rule. How about you actually care about writing the damn thing instead y'know, writing something decent? Instead of thinking about this big success you're statistically unlikely to ever see almost no matter what you do. Do it cos you enjoy it.
For another example Brad Thor writes very political work for a right wing audience. He is very clear, and in fact strict about it. He won't even blurb other authors who don't pass his political litmus test.

Exercise some common sense. The obvious exception to what I said was if you specifically write about real world politics. This is a fantasy forum last I checked and my comments were aimed at fantasy writers.

How many zeros do you think he has on his advance check?

Don't care.

The other thing your post presupposes is that one is incapable of having great writing skills and a great sense of your business and how the industry works. There are lots of writers whose craft rises to the highest level who are obsessed, well informed and active in the business side of their writing and the industry in general.

It doesn't presuppose that at all. Someone can absolutely not allow marketing and formula dictate their work and be creative and bold, while still having strong understanding of business. In fact someone like that is more likely to get their work to the public. The operative word in my original post was "always." When you're writing, you're writing. You're not marketing. You're not thinking about maximum sales. Of course some do, but they're not creative in my opinion.

And if you think your agent will take care of all the market issues and everything else for you

Agents and yourself in collaboration will find the best fit for the project. That doesn't mean the project should be written in line with market demands because there's a market for most things.
Yeah, personally, like sat down and talked to. Me, lots. More than a dozen.

They're not in my medium so there's no reason to speak to them.

And why you chose to pick on that trans person as an example of failure is beyond me.

Asked and answered.
Oh...and one other thing. Writing commercial fiction is a real job.

Not for most writers it ain't.
 
If I knew what an AMA was I might be able to tell you...:)

For sure I know which conferences you can find them at and can even get you into all of the cocktail parties...

Also if you are really serious I could direct you to audio recordings of them talking about how the business works...but I don't think they are free...

AMA stands for ask me anything.
 

Annoyingkid

Banned
I don't mean to pile on but what do those two things have to do with his point?

What does showing a shit ton of my writing and art have to do with him questioning my commitment and seriousness to writing?

Was that your question? :confused:

You know the idea has some merit...but then I think, should I really expose my friends to people like Annoyingkid?

At least he warned us with his name.

Reported.
 
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That's not blunt. That's irrelevant. There's a difference.

What have I done? Write. And write. And write. For 30 years, I've been writing. I'm not published yet, because I haven't done anything deserving of it. But I write constantly. And it's not that difficult for someone who is serious about the craft to keep the tools AND the politics equally in mind.
 
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