Is it really that bad?

I'm sure I'm not the first person to post what I am about to post, although perhaps I'll be the most newbish about it. I'm also sure I'm not the first person to think what I am currently thinking, although perhaps I'm overstating it. I do tend toward the dramatic.

Nevertheless, I have to ask if what I think I have learned about professional writing is accurate. Not because I believe I deserve or am owed success, not even because I believe I am especially talented. Never having had an objective review of my writing, I have no idea if I am even remotely publishable.

Every night, I sit down at my computer and convince myself that I am working on a novel. I've been working on various projects all my life I suppose, but this one in particular for nearly 8 years. I write thousands of words and believe that they are chapters. I write dozens of chapters and believe they are part of a book. Until the last few weeks, my illusion was flawless. "I'm a writer" I would tell myself, and I'd take another sip of coffee and consider it a sufficient excuse for staying up late enough that my work performance suffered.

I've never submitted my work anywhere. No short stories, no poetry, no articles. I've had very little education, especially with regard to writing, grammar, language, and literature, as is no doubt already abundantly evident to anyone still reading. I write like what I am: an amateur.

Still, I thought it was possible that someday I could get somewhere, maybe get something published. Maybe with enough revision, maybe with enough scrutiny, I'd put out something someone would want to read. That belief was the cornerstone of my illusion.

I've spent the last few weeks really researching what it takes to be a professional writer. I've never done so before. I know, I'm probably the kind of writer that people here dread to see. I'm a totally uniformed rank amateur, coming to you with my hand out, begging for a scrap of sage advice to set me on the right path. Just one more way in which I'm ordinary.

To be blunt, as I hope you will be, my question is simple: Should I quit?

I know I can learn the grammar, the punctuation, the technical aspects. I write code for a living and have learned nearly a dozen programming languages without any formal instruction. Given the time and information, I'm sure I could master proper, functional writing. I know I'm creative, the other half of my job is as a designer and artist. I even think I have some decent story ideas. The only part that I don't have any real insight into is whether or not I'm any good. I don't know if my stories are interesting or engaging, if people like them or hate. I just don't know.

My problem is that I've come to believe that I might never find out if I'm any good. It seems to me that someone can go their entire life trying to be a professional writer without ever finding out if they are wasting their time.

Here is a list of the things that I think I have learned. If this list is inaccurate, please let me know.

1) Getting published is like winning the lottery. The odds against having a novel published are so monumental as to be virtually insurmountable. People still get published, sure, but people win the lottery too; doesn't mean I'm going to spend my savings buying lottery tickets. Conclusion: give up now.

2) Even if lightning strikes and you manage to get published, you will remain dirt poor. If you want your children to have a little more than macaroni figurines to open on Christmas morning, you'd better find a different career. Conclusion: give up now.

3) At least half of the so-called resources available to writers online and in print are actually just scams that feed on 'wanna-be syndrome'. You've got to choose between a lifetime of failure and being completely ripped-off. Conclusion: give up now.

4) Everything has been done. No matter how original you think your story is, the first Amazon.com reviewer would cry 'Hack!' and let slip the dogs of criticism. Moreover, he'd likely be correct. Someone, somewhere, already wrote and published your plot. Conclusion: give up now.

5) Even if, by some miracle, you have a good, original and well-written manuscript, no one will care. As discussed above, the odds of someone actually reading it are nearly infinitesimal. What's more, if they do read it, they will care first and foremost about whether or not there is a market for it. Being an uniformed nobody, you have virtually no chance of 'striking while the iron is hot'. Have a mathematician figure out what the odds are against you hitting the publisher lottery with a book that they actually read, actually like, AND is marketable. Conclusion: get out while you still can.

Am I wrong? I'm sorry if I come off like some kind of whiny and ignorant jerk, but the last two weeks have been, I think anyway, an eye-opener. Where once there was an idealistic if naive amateur who believed that it was possible to be a writer, there is now a crushed programmer, admittedly deep in a mid-life crisis, who has stumbled across a bleak and depressing vision of professional writing. Is there hope out there? Is that hope worth pursuing for a husband and father with no college degree?

I guess I want to know if the lottery is a more productive use of my time. I know it may seem I've thrown artistic desires and self-expression out the window but I haven't. I can write for myself and my friends and family if my greatest hope is merely to express my thoughts. There is a real business of writing out there, and I want to know if getting into that business is as horrible and unlikely as I've been led to believe. Is it really that bad?

My name is Katie. I am thirteen years old, and want to be a writer. Listen here, what you need to do is change your attitude. You need to be optimistic and be passionate. There are tons of publishers; I think you have a better chance of getting published than winning the lottery. If you don't think you can do it, you won't. You have to believe in yourself. Being so young, my chances of getting published by a real publisher (I don't consider Published on Demand books published) are very slim, and that makes me want to try even more than I would if my chances were better. If you want to know how good your stories are, post them here. Join a critique group or find a critique partner. One thing I already know is, you should always keep on writing and never give up. You should also have another job because usually you can't live on your writing. Don't let anything stop you. That's my advice.

Katie~

You know what? That's good advice from Katie. K. is a sweet young girl to whom all is possible, of course, but she nailed it anyway.

Short answer to your question: yes and no.

Two things I noticed . . . (1) you do not write badly on your post. (2) you have never tried to be published. also i note that you write code, and are going through a midlife mess. If I were you I would do these things: (1) get a life. pay attention to your wife and family, or if it's too late for that, move on, but pay attention to the kids and your friends anyway. and that means off the screen. (2) save your money. you will in all likelihood hit a big wall soon. when i did that i lost a cool, count 'em, $1,000,000. (3) reconsider your practical career options; if you like driving a truck and are not bad at it, drive a truck. no shame. (4) take some courses. at your point, getting published is in fact probably harder than winning the lottery, especially with your morose attitude. it is a game of skill, not of luck. develop your skill. (5) take care of yourself; be healthy; notice that the world is good. take deep breaths. check out absolutewrite's threads on being healthy, even if they don't seem to fit. (6) come back to your writing later; a month or a year from now; work at it, one thing at a time. Do not rely on your computer spell check. know the language. (7) You have three indispensable gifts . . . a decent facility in words, a passion for using them, and a life with mixed and no doubt textured values and experiences. writing is not, i repeat not, your quick new life, presto, waiting for you. get your new life in order, work at it, and the writing will follow. Q.

I'm there with Katie.
Do you write because you want to write or to sell books? For me, getting published is a dream which someday might come true. Until then, I write stuff. It makes me happy to do so. Is any of it any good? I'm not the one to judge, but I let some folks I trust not to blow smoke at me read my stuff and they all like it. You know what? Just knowing that keeps me going. I'm on the fourth novel now and still find it fun just to create the characters and let them tell me a story.
All of what you listed in your post as what you have learned is about what I've learned in my efforts. It is, to say the very least, daunting and depressing. If, that is, getting published is the only way you measure success. I submit to you that there are other forms of making yourself content with your writing.
With respect,
rlw

I think my rambling made my point less coherent. All of you would have had good advice for someone experiencing self-doubt. As I stated above, I've never even tried to get published, nor do I have any indication of the value or quality of my own work.

It is not, in short, my own experiences that I am drawing on.

I'd like to point out that I take offense to the implication that I am somehow neglectful of my family. I happen to be an excellent father and devoted husband.

I am merely combining what I have heard and seen over the last few weeks on web sites just like this one and asking a point blank question.

Is the bleak picture drearily spray painted across the internet an accurate depiction? Is it really that hard to break in. I lean toward the verbose and in doing so, became unclear.

I have zero experience to draw on here. I'm listening to accounts by others and am asking people who've been there if it's really as bad as all that. If you haven't seen the depressing nightmare depicted by writers on blogs, message boards, writer's websites, and on and on, well you've not looked at all, or you've had a very different google journey than I have.

Don't mistake my question about how tough the industry is for some type of failure as a human being.

Willie, with equal respect, my question is not about personal success. I've got plenty of personal success. As I clearly pointed out, if I am merely seeking fulfillment I can find it without professional writing. What I am asking is how difficult professional writing is to break into. If it is literally as terrible as dozens of web sites would have me believe then I'll know not to try. I probably will try, actually, but want to know what I'm getting in to.

breaking in

I've seem the writing world from both sides - writer and editor. You would be amazed at the incredibly awful stuff that crosses editors's desks. I mean not just bad, but really, really, really bad, both in style and content. From your post, I would say that you have a good enough command of the language to writer better than roughly 85% of the people who submit. Whether you have anything worth saying, who knows, since you have never shared your writing.

One reason people who write adequately don't get published is that they don't do the market research necessary to target the correct publishers. Or they ignore things like preferred length and send publishers a 400,000 word first book.

My advice is this:

1. Test the waters with some short pieces. Although I am sure that there are people whose first published work is a novel, I can't think of any. Take Annie Proulx for example. She allegedly burst on the literary scene with her first novel and won the Pulitizer prize with her third book (The Shipping News). This "burst" came after 20 years of freelance non-fiction writing.

2. Become informed.Learn how traditional publishing works. Search for the best target markets for your content and style. You are right that many online "opportunities" for writer aren't opportunities to do anything except waste time and money.

3. Read books and magazines that you would like to have written. Analyze why these pieces work. Pay attention to pacing. A lot of stuff gets rejected because it moves too slowly to draw the reader in or because the reader doesn't care about the characters. Boring story is the most common reason mechanically adequate writing is rejected.

4. Take a class or join a critique group or both.or go to a writer's conference where you can submit work for critique. Go into it as a learning experience and don't be offended if people find flaws in your work. If they do, so will agents and editors. Better to know the problems and fix them than send off your baby and with flaws. Rule of thumb: If one person tells you that they don't like a particular part of the book, a character, or that something confuses them, does not follow logically, or is slow, ignore them. If several people tell you about the same issue, there is a problem with that spot and you need to revise.

5. Embrace revision. Revision is restructuring, axing some of your favorite lines, expanding or contracting the story, moving it along faster. It is not the same as polishing by finding a word here or there to change.

6. Share your work. It is the only way to know how others will react to it. I really can't see how you can make any kind of decision about whether your should keep on writing without critical feedback of your work.

7. If you want to write and it gives you pleasure, write. If you want to be rich and famous, buy lottery tickets.

There is no reason why a competent writer cannot get published, but it takes time and it helps to build up a portfolio of smaller pieces. You learn things along the way, and you build up your credibility. Not having a college degree is irrelevant.

And on a final note of hope, newbies do get published. The first thing I ever submitted was published and I was paid $125. And no, although I have a college degree, it is in biology, and I only ever took the two semesters of required freshman English in college.

I think Tish D. has summed it up as well as I understand the marketplace. I might add what I've been told almost universally in rejection letters: the market is subjective. What is good enough to publish in one house may not be in the next. This complicates your question of 'how bleak is it?'

I was also told this by an agent: "Agents submit to publishers about 1% of work for which they have received queries. Publishers print only about 1% percent of that which is submitted to them by agents. You do the math. I do not know how true this is, but one thing for sure is that it comments on the volume and the quality within the volume of material being produced out there.

I have found the effort to get published daunting. I persevere because I believe in myself. Sorry to get philosophical in response to your question, but after awhile, you either get that way or get out. It is a lot of work and there is the impression that the light at the end of the tunnel might be an oncoming train. I wish you good luck and good words.
rlw

Luck helps, I'm sure, but can't be relied upon.

There is some excellent advice given above. I'd only add that I believe the chances of publishing success are directly proportional to the amount of talent you have; the amount of hard work you're willing to put in; and your ability to persevere when faced with doubt and rejection.

Wow, 8 years on the same novel, writing every night -- you are my long-lost twin brother. You won't remember me but I was kidnapped from the maternity ward by an evil wizard, long story, I won't go into details now. We have the same heart-shaped birthmark on the left hip, see? Anyway--

There are writing groups all over the internet, I mean all over. Find one, sign up, read fiction by other writers, let them read yours. Laugh at how bad theirs is and revel in the fact yours is bloody marvellous by comparison. Living some writerly introverted hermit existence isn't doing you any good at all. Throw the drapes wide, open the attic window and spread your wings. Don't look down, just flap your arms real hard.

-Derek

Submit

Words they are wonderful things. They trip off our tongues and pop off the ends of our fingers onto the keyboard. When we are in the right groove they flow out of us leaping and bounding, weaving and sweeping, calling up emotions and images. OH, what a wonderful thing! And this particular posting has already generated a lot of them. I only have one further word for you......
SUBMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

edit

And I have another word for you EDIT! Words that flow out of us leaping and bounding, weaving and sweeping, calling up emotions and imagesare shallow, trite, redundant, and urgently in need of a good literary scrubbing before they are ready to send out into the world. Until you get past the idea that every first draft that you write is inspired prose, you aren't going to get published. Being in the grove is great as a start, but it takes a lot of sweat to produce a polished piece.

Re: edit

"Maybe with enough revision, maybe with enough scrutiny"
he said.

I know about the revise revise revise mandate.
I'm aware of the "stick to it" platitudes.
I've never claimed my writing was inspired. In fact I think the word I used was amateur.

What I was discussing was the many statements by discouraged writers, book doctors, and vanity publishing web sites that paint a picture of a cruel and disorganized industry.

I was referring to the repeated stories about getting published being so monumentally difficult as to be impossible without random good luck.

I did not even say that this IS the way it is. I was asking IF this is the way it is.

to answer your question...

I was referring to the repeated stories about getting published being so monumentally difficult as to be impossible without random good luck.

I did not even say that this IS the way it is. I was asking IF this is the way it is.

Click to expand...

YES!... talent, skill, hard work, perseverance, salesmanship, all have to be there to 'make it'... but in the end, it really comes down to that damnably random thingamajig, 'LUCK'... as in getting your work and/or yourself in the right time at the right place...

not a happy thought, not terribly fair, but a fact of life for a writer of just about anything... i'm a good mother, so hafta tellya the truth, even if it hurts...

love and extra hugs, maia

Luck

Unlike mama, I feel luck plays only a very small role, and that most people who are "lucky" in publishing are that way because they have worked hard to understand the market, learn their craft, practice what they learned, and always done their best.

The truth is that not everyone can be a traditionally published author, just as everyone cannot be a professional baseball player, a corporate CEO, a doctor, lawyer or fighter pilot. We all have limitations and yes, sometimes we are disappointed because what we want to do does not match up to our capabilities and the opportunities that life gives us. Writing, fortunately, is something we can do either as a professional or as a hobbiest.

I think the question you should be asking is whether writing gives you enough pleasure to keep on writing even if you never get published. If it does, then write. Write to the best of your ability. Learn as much as you can about the craft, but enjoy the process as well as the product. If the act of writing gives you no pleasure, and your pleasure comes entirely from complating how wonderful it will be to be a published author, then I think you will be disappointed. (hint: publication does not make the earth move. You're still the same old slob at the keyboard the next day). Another questions to ask yourself is what would you be doing with your time if you were not writing. Would it give you more or less satisfaction than wrestling with words?

As for publishing being disorganized, in my experience, disorganization is less of a problem than the fact that it moves with glacial slowness. Many writers are attuned to almost-instant electronic communications and want instant gratification from sending off a piece, while publishers are attuned to moving at carrier pigeon speed. For example, the book I am writing now is due in manuscript form in May 2003 and will not be published until September 2005. With the very long lead times, writers sometimes get caught in editor changes, publication buy-outs and other business events that disrupt the publication cycle. It is frustrating, but not necessarily disorganized or driven by random, unexplainable events, although it may look this way from outside the loop.

Re: Luck

I have this friend; he's a plumber. The other day, he told me that the world of professional plumbing is fraught with peril. He told me horror stories about mobsters controlling the game, years of grueling education gone to waste, and struggling to make ends meet. The picture was, to be generous, bleak.

A day or so later the pipe in my kitchen burst and I had to get a plumber out there. Strange coincidence I know, but such is life. I would never mix work and friendship so I called a service. They sent out a guy I'd never met to fix the pipe. I was curious, so I asked him if that was what the world of professional plumbing was really like. You know what he told me?

"TheTableist," he said, "if that is your real name... let me tell you something. Your outlook stinks."

I was surprised at this, but waited to hear the rest.

"You should be asking yourself why you are so messed up," he said. "You think you're a super-plumber genius but, let me tell you something, you aren't. You need to pay attention to your family and quit trying to get rich. Fact is, you'd make a terrible plumber, because you're only in it for the glory."

I never knew how messed up I was until he let me in on it, but thank goodness this perfect stranger was there to judge my life. I've given up asking plumbing questions for good now. I still can't believe I had the audacity to wonder if plumbing was so difficult to break into. If I really cared about plumbing, I would block such curiousity out of my mind. I'd plumb and plumb and never look ahead. After all, it's not about laurels. I didn't know I was only interested in laurels, but the kind stranger opened my eyes. It's about the craft. I didn't know I didn't care about that either, but apparently, I did not.

plumbing the soul

The knowledge of the ages in the form of a pipe twister. Inspiration comes from wher we look least.
rlw

Table making

I met a guy who wondered if tablemaking might be a worthwhile endeavour. He did a bit of research and was dismayed at what he found.

Apparently, achieving success by tablemaking was difficult. Everybody and his brother-in-law was making tables and only the luckiest of them ever sold one. Whether or not the tables could support dishes and elbows didn't seem to matter. Careful crafting to ensure the legs were flush with the floor didn't matter. Satiny-smooth or splintered top? No matter. Only lucky tablemakers seemed to sell their product.

He was 90% convinced that tablemaking was not for him but decided to explore one more avenue. He went to a tablemakers' message board and crafting a LONG post about his tablemaking angst. Several tablemakers of various levels of experience and success took the time to respond to his post. They outlined what worked, or didn't, for them. Most concluded that talent, time, effort and practice at tablemaking were more important than luck in achieving success.

Alas, one respondent strayed slightly from the topic at hand and speculated briefly about the would-be tablemaker's personal situation.

Clearly miffed, the erstwhile tablemaker ignored the majority of helpful suggestions and focused his ire on the errant poster. By doing so, he seemed to validate his original hypothesis: there was no real point in making tables after all.

Apparently, he is now considering plumbing.

newbies

"Clearly miffed, the erstwhile tablemaker ignored the majority of helpful suggestions and focused his ire on the errant poster. By doing so, he seemed to validate his original hypothesis"

eraser, that's chronic newbie attitude. He doesn't want to hear about the slow slog to publication. He want confirmation of what he already "knows" - that his work is super-genius and the mean world of publishing is blind not to recoginze it immediately upon first submission or even before submission.
This guy hasn't even shared his work with a critque group and he's already moaning about the mean, unfair world of publishing.

Hey Tabelist - collect a few rejection letters before you damn an entire industry with your preconceptions. What you are saying essentially is that you aren't willing to work on your writing unless someone can promise you that it is going to get published. That ain't gonna happen. There are no short cuts.

Re: newbies

Tish, that's chronic pompous attitude. I could not have been been more clear about my own work or more clearly asking for confirmation about what other people have said about the industry. Yet you come in this thread with preconceived notions about newbies, which you just confirmed in the most blatant manner possible. I do want to know how hard it is. Asking that question is not an invitation for you to speculate about my own view of my own work, something which you could not possibly have any idea about whatsoever.

If you've never seen or read what I have seen or read then you are in a little bubble all your own.

Let me clue you in on something, you are not the end-all be-all of information. Believe it or not, there are some people not interested in your self-serving pontification about the value of perserverance or the beauty of art for art's sake.

I did not say I'm not willing to work on anything. I asked IF, and let me repeat that for you tish, IF what I had heard was accurate.

So let me invite you to take your precious advice elsewhere. I'm sure you see yourself as some angel of wisdom descended from the heavens in a selfless mission to give of yourself to the uneducated masses but in the future, I'll thank you to keep your overblown and trite platitudes to yourself. If you can't answer a simple question then don't post at all. Others may be impressed with your couching of meaningless rah-rahs in flowery language to make it seem significant but I assure you I am not. You may as well have added "stay in school" and "don't do drugs" to your self-indulgent "advice".

You assume quite a bit for knowing nothing at all, and if there were any doubt about what your true motive was in answering this thread it was cleared up completely in your most recent reply. You are a pompous egomaniac.

My original hypothesis was not a hypothesis at all by the way. It was a reiteration from other people on the web with at LEAST as much credibility as the anonymous people on this board. I requested a second opinion and that is ALL that I did. In response I get a judgemental diatribe from a know-it-all.

Wonderful impression you guys make.

Re: newbies

Quote The The Tableguy:

"Am I wrong? I'm sorry if I come off like some kind of whiny and ignorant jerk, but the last two weeks have been, I think anyway, an eye-opener. Where once there was an idealistic if naive amateur who believed that it was possible to be a writer, there is now a crushed programmer, admittedly deep in a mid-life crisis, who has stumbled across a bleak and depressing vision of professional writing. Is there hope out there? Is that hope worth pursuing for a husband and father with no college degree?

I guess I want to know if the lottery is a more productive use of my time. I know it may seem I've thrown artistic desires and self-expression out the window but I haven't. I can write for myself and my friends and family if my greatest hope is merely to express my thoughts. There is a real business of writing out there, and I want to know if getting into that business is as horrible and unlikely as I've been led to believe. Is it really that bad?"

Short answer: yes, it is, give it up. I tell myself that twice a day: when I boot up the laptop and then when I shut it down. In between those times, none of it matters.
rlw

Re: newbies

Here's a few more quotes from my posts. Apparently these don't count.

"Not because I believe I deserve or am owed success, not even because I believe I am especially talented."

"I've had very little education, especially with regard to writing, grammar, language, and literature, as is no doubt already abundantly evident to anyone still reading. I write like what I am: an amateur."

"Maybe with enough revision, maybe with enough scrutiny"

"It seems to me that someone can go their entire life trying to be a professional writer without ever finding out if they are wasting their time."

"I've never claimed my writing was inspired."

I guess somehow that translates into me believing my work is super-genius.

Re: newbies

What if all the answers you got were "Yes, it is as bad as everyone says it is." What would you do?



And what would you do if everyone responded "No, it is not as bad as you heard"?



If you like to write, go ahead and continue. If you don’t want to write any more, stop. You want to see if you’re any good, share. If you’re not interested in what others think of your work, don’t share. Some people are very content writing just for themselves. Some aren’t. Where do you fit in? No need to share your findings. This is just something for you to gnaw on.

anonymous

Hey, call me pompous, but don't call me anonymous.

One thing to remember if you want to become a professional writer - as in someone who supports himself by writing - you are essentially a small business. And a high percentage of all small businesses fail.

Re: newbies

"What if all the answers you got were "Yes, it is as bad as everyone says it is." What would you do?"

"And what would you do if everyone responded "No, it is not as bad as you heard"?"

I'd probably take that information and think about it. Those would be answers to the question that I actually asked instead of ad hominem attacks describing my life and opinions from a perfect ANONYMOUS stranger.