[HN Gopher] Living the writing life means living with failure ___________________________________________________________________ Living the writing life means living with failure Author : bookofjoe Score : 19 points Date : 2023-03-11 15:41 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com) | bookofjoe wrote: | https://archive.ph/kbs7Z | diamondap wrote: | I read an interview a few years ago where a reporter asked a | writer what was the difference between authors who made it and | authors who didn't. The writer said that the ones who made it | stuck with it. They just kept on writing despite years and years | without strong sales or recognition. | | If you're going to stick with it, there has to be something there | beyond a desire for sales or widespread praise. | | Success, too, has its downsides. My wife is a painter--and if you | think it's hard to make a living at writing, try painting. She | met another painter who makes a huge income, but that painter | complained, "My first sales were paintings of boats. And for | years now, everyone comes to me wanting a boat. I'm bored to | death of them. I want to paint other subjects, but this is what | pays, so I keep doing it, as frustrating as it is." | | Look into fiction writing, and you'll find few writers whose | publishers will let them write outside their genres. Those | writers may want to explore, but the publishers know what has | sold in the past, and they want more of that. The only major | author I can think of who sells big in multiple genres in Stephen | King. | | Self-publishing has been a godsend for those who like to explore. | You can write anything you want and push it out at will. You | might not make money at it, but you can do it. | | At bottom, you have to choose your definition of success and | failure. If you define success as being accepted by editors and | critics, receiving praise and prizes from the publishing | community and hitting the bestseller lists, all of that is beyond | your control. It's like fishing for likes on Instagram. | | If you define success as getting better at your craft, writing | something that you and the few people you really respect like, | then you can find fulfillment. I often think of gardeners who | pour hours into their roses, not to get rich or to receive | recognition, but just because it pleases them and fulfills a deep | inner appreciation. | xwdv wrote: | If I had the money, I would love to build a public library of | nothing but unpublished works, printed and bound in books, where | every book you pull from a shelf is something that was never | widely circulated, from authors you never heard of. Could even | print whole blogs and comment histories of writers from around | the internet. | bookofjoe wrote: | https://neglectedbooks.com/ ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-03-11 23:00 UTC)