So You Don't Believe in Luck in Publishing????

Alitriona said:

Well yeah actually, I suppose that's one way to put it. Except I wouldn't always say someone else's responsibility. If I hired the workman after not checking into his previous work, I would say that was my own fault that the roof didn't hold up.

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So nothing ever happens that we didn't orchestrate in some way?

That's a frightening thought, and can lead down a dangerous road of blaming the victim, "Well yeah, sucks she was raped, but she was out late with a guy and wearing a short skirt."

I know that isn't what you are really trying to say, but the idea that everything comes down to our responsibility is a teeny tiny bit silly. There are many things in life we can't control, now it doesn't mean therefore things happen to us supernaturally, but not everything that goes wrong is our fault. Which means, unfortunately, not everything that goes right is our fault either. Sometimes a series of events out of our control work in our favour or against it. Call it luck, call it a series of events out of our control, but to say that everything comes down to what we as individuals do is putting a heck of a lot of a burden on people.

I'm all for responsibility (I work just as hard as the next person despite set back after set back, I'm no moper) . . . but you are in a weird way doing a reverse version of The Secret, which said that if you just send out good vibes good things will happen, thus the only conclusion to be drawn is if bad things happen you weren't sending out enough good vibes and it's your fault if your family dies in a plane crash. For you your theory is "If you work hard enough and do everything right everything will work out" which means that if everything doesn't work out I simply am not working hard enough. Honestly, I'd love for you to tell that to my face, that I'm not working hard enough. I'm not a violent person at all, but if anyone had the gall to accuse me of that . . . well I'd probably explain calmly why they were wrong and then after we resolved our issues maybe ask if they wanted to go see Scott Pilgrim because I am SO looking forward to that movie . . .

I digress . . .

Sometimes bad things happen to good people for no other reason than they happen. And sometimes good things happen to good people (and to bad people too I should point out) for no other reason than they happen. To suggest otherwise is quite sweet I suppose, "If you work hard enough all your dreams will come true", but most of us know that life isn't fair. Personally I find the fact that despite knowing this we keep the optimism and keep persistently following our dreams actually pretty amazing. Much more impressive than working under the assumption that all will be well.

Alitriona said:

Bad luck doesn't make a company close. It's a series of factors based on anything from decisions made by management, staff, customers, even things like weather and war can effect. Weather is meterology the rest are choices rightly or wrongly made by a human being.

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The bad luck comes from my choosing that company over another that doesn't go out of business.

A friend of mine opened his own brewery. They were doing pretty well until their business was flooded a couple times. That's bad luck, not meteorology.

You choose not to believe in the term "luck." I do, because I've had it bite me in the ass too many times. Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I also want to add that while I believe there are many things out of our control out there, that doesn't mean we just sit back and wait. As someone up thread said persistence is the key. And luck only favours the prepared. So when you happen to meet that top agent on the plane sitting in the seat next to you, well the seating arrangements were pure coincidence, but you knowing who she is, that she reps your kind of work, and you having several completed polished MSs in that genre ready for her, as well as an elevator pitch you can say when she asks what they are about, well that's all down to your hard work.

Still, the point is, you never would have had the opportunity in the first place had you not been accidentally sat next to her on the plane.

I don't think anyone here is advocating relying on luck, but rather just knowing that there are things out of our control, and that all we can do is keep on keeping on despite having that knowledge.

Toothpaste said:

I don't think anyone here is advocating relying on luck, but rather just knowing that there are things out of our control, and that all we can do is keep on keeping on despite having that knowledge.

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I'm certainly not advocating relying on it. That's just asking for trouble. You do the best you can with all the variables you have control over and just hope that all that hard work and perseverance can counter the variables you don't have control over.

Toothpaste said:

So nothing ever happens that we didn't orchestrate in some way?

That's a frightening thought, and can lead down a dangerous road of blaming the victim, "Well yeah, sucks she was raped, but she was out late with a guy and wearing a short skirt."

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Well see, no I am certainly not saying that and take offence at the implication I would, even with your little withdrawal statement after. I would say the deciding factor there is not the girl wearing the short skirt but the guy making the decision to rape her, ie not bad luck but a concious decision by another party which directly impacted on the victim.

I really don't see how that comparison is helpful in an otherwise reasonable discussion.

Shadow_Ferrett I'm sorry you've had bad things happen to you in the past, you are totally right that people have to agree to disagree. Basically it comes down to whatever ideology gets a person through the night or up in the morning.

I wouldn't say luck. Really. Unless you make the effort and persevere then you'll never get anywhere. Unless you work hard, good things won't come. But if your manuscript happen to land on the desk at the right time, at the right moment, when the vagaries of mood and inclination match, i absolutely believe it can help. Or it can land on the desk five minutes after the last slot has been filled. Is that luck? Well, call it what you will. Coincidence. Circumstance. Chance. But the random element is surely there.

KTC said:

nope. because i always hear people saying, "that lucky son of a bitch!" i don't know anybody who thinks lottery winners are NOT lucky. well, i guess except maybe...you.

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You need to included me in that statement too then.

I started my career out in the gaming industry. There is no such thing as luck when it comes to gambling, just chance and odds.

What gambling does do is send a message out about yourself that says I have no control over my fate.

Had Mr. Edgerton done his homework, he wouldn't have submitted to University of North Texas Press. Being dilligent and competent in his research would have cost him that contract. Should we emulate that? After all, it's led to success, and shouldn't we try everything?

Is fortuitiously fucking up a skill? Can you learn how to do that? Teach me how to fuck up and be reliably successful, and I'll grant you that there's no such thing as luck.

Interesting semantic argument. Luck to me is not the same as Fate. It's not quite a synonym for random chance, but it's a good deal closer to chance than it is to some kind of premeditated, predestined whatever.

While the word in itself is not inherently linked to anything more than "what happened and whether I apply a positive or negative adjective to it", you do see "lucky" as a way of saying someone has "persistent good/bad luck". If you've ever seen the cartoon "Mr Magoo", that is an example of persistent luck - coincidence after coincidence in increasingly outlandish form serving to allow Mr Magoo to continue on his way without dying horribly. As if the universe is rearranging itself around him. But "luck" doesn't not usually equate to "persistent luck".

As for whether luck plays a role in getting published - of course it does. Say you and your friend both write a story about giant cats and send it to an editor you know is doing an anthology on giant cats. You post them on the same day, they're both good, solid stories. There is one slot in the anthology left, and one story is read first, deemed suitable, and the rest of the submissions are tossed in the reject pile unread. What is that if not luck?

Talent, care, hard work (and speed in writing in that example's case) have a bigger influence, but luck is an undeniable factor in specific circumstances. However, taken in a whole of career perspective, persistence and talent are likely to overcome the luck of the draw.

It amazes me how many people are deluded into thinking they have 100% control of every random element in their lives.

aruna said:

It seems that the word "luck" is a thorn in the side of some people; the believe that "luck" implies some sort of supernatural interference or whatever.

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Yeah, I think that's it. 'Luck' as synonomous with 'random chance', I have no problem with. Thing is, 'luck' is often tied up with nonsense like rabbits' feet and four leaf clovers and such.

Alitriona said:

Well see, no I am certainly not saying that and take offence at the implication I would, even with your little withdrawal statement after. I would say the deciding factor there is not the girl wearing the short skirt but the guy making the decision to rape her, ie not bad luck but a concious decision by another party which directly impacted on the victim.

I really don't see how that comparison is helpful in an otherwise reasonable discussion.

Shadow_Ferrett I'm sorry you've had bad things happen to you in the past, you are totally right that people have to agree to disagree. Basically it comes down to whatever ideology gets a person through the night or up in the morning.

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It is helpful because you implied earlier that nothing happens out of our own control so I took it to the extreme (and my "little withdrawel" you may wish to dismiss but I said exactly what I meant, and that was "see what happens when you imply everything is our fault, people can take it to the extreme") to show you where your line of reasoning goes.

I regret using the example now, however, as the lion's share of my point came after that sentence and you seem to have utterly ignored the rest of what I considered a thoughtful response to you that took a bit of time for me to compose. I said from the beginning you didn't actually mean that statement, but that that is where others could take your line of reasoning. I meant what I said, and it wasn't backpedaling or anything. I am sorry that you felt I was being disingenuous with anything I was saying, but do you mind coming back and instead of focusing on one bit that you didn't believe was sincere, respond to the rest of my post about things out of our control?

I suppose your doing so is out of my control, but I think that what I wrote deserves a bit more consideration than mere dismissal, even if you didn't like where I went with your train of thought.



Or maybe it simply isn't worth it. You seem determined to think that what we mean by "luck" is something magical, whereas I think most of us here see it as Aruna defined it, a word to describe that which is out of our control. We are probably engaged in a semantical debate and that is it. Though I still find you ignoring both my posts (aside from the one comment that annoyed you a little) kind of frustrating. My bad luck I guess .

Yes, well no one else took my line of reasoning to mean that I think it's a young woman's fault if she gets raped. That was just you. The reason I didn't answer was that I didn't consider a post that would infer such a thing worthy of my time. So not your bad luck, my decision based on your action.

Earlier in this same thread luck was decribed as something being almost miraculous, that is something very different from random chance or as I said, my life being determind by my decisions and the decisions of other and the effect they have on me.

I have to say, I'm amused to see this thread on Friday the 13th. A day on which, incidentally, I once found a four-leaf clover...

Luck as in random chance obviously has a huge impact on our lives, including whether or not we get published, and all the hard work in the world won't guarantee success if a lot of little random events don't line up right.

But luck as a force, something that can be invoked--as if you can send out positive thoughts and your endeavours will get a sprinkling of fairy dust to supplement your hard work--isn't something I believe in. It's basically the opposite of real "luck" (i.e. randomness). It can also easily slide into a belief that you deserve to "get lucky" because you have good karma/think positive/work harder/carry a rabbit's foot, and that's a quick road to becoming bitter as hell.

Of course, it's one thing to say that and another thing to live it. We're wired to see patterns everywhere, and giving coincidences more weight than they should have, even supernatural weight, comes pretty easy to human beings. I mean, hell, I kept that four-leaf clover for years!

JimmyB27 said:

Yeah, I think that's it. 'Luck' as synonomous with 'random chance', I have no problem with. Thing is, 'luck' is often tied up with nonsense like rabbits' feet and four leaf clovers and such.

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Those are superstitions. We aren't talking superstitions. We're just using the word luck to mean random chance. Most people understand it's use without subscribing mystical connotations to it. We're not talking Friday the 13th luck.

Lucky at cards.
He had a string of bad luck.
The luck of the draw.

None of those have rabbits feet or horse shoes attached to them. They're simple idioms.

If you send a manuscript to an agent, and it arrives the day after they close for that genre, that's bad luck.

Locking this thread for a bit. Everyone take a deep breath and move on.