Tuesday, June 15, 2004
My Thoughts on Writing
In order to be a writer, you have to really want to. Not just kinda, sorta, but really really.
Why is that? Because writing is expensive, time consuming, and at times, frustrating.
It is expensive to buy the magazines that you hope to submit stories to. You need equipment with which to produce your work. Editors don’t want a pile of hand-written work sent to them. They want flawlessly printed manuscripts. You must buy paper to print your work on. Sometimes the same work must be printed many times to get it just right. Postage and envelopes must be purchased to send your work in, unless you are lucky enough to be able to email your work. Even then, some publishers charge a fee to consider your work.
It is time consuming to do the reading and research necessary to prepare to write. You read about how to write. You read magazines and books in order to find out what is selling as well as what has already been done. You read to find out what type of stories a particular magazine will accept. Sometimes you have to read a ton of magazines to find a match for your story. You also must do research to make sure you know what you are talking about if you choose to use certain facts in your story. Even though your story may be fiction, you have to seem knowledgeable about the place or subject the story is about. Otherwise you will lose the readers confidence in your writing.
The frustrations can be endless. The story never comes out on paper the way you pictured it in your mind. Getting the story to flow correctly takes many hours of revision. Getting spelling and grammar correct takes at least another hour. Then there is always that elusive element that you struggle to infuse. The mysterious something that just makes your story “work.” Sometimes that something won’t occur to you for weeks, months or even years. Then you finally get it down on paper. After revising and revising your revisions for the billionth time. You have gotten friends to go over it, since you have butchered, hacked and finally made yourself sick of reading your own work. You print it, mail it and wait agonizing weeks or months for a response. Then finally, you receive in the mail or your email a response. Nine times out of ten, you are honored with a lovely rejection. Hopefully you have received helpful instead of only harsh comments on your work.
Then you have to buck up, take a deep cleansing breath, let out a primal scream and do it all again.
Anyone who doesn’t absolutely love to write would never go through all this!
Comments-[ comments.]
In order to be a writer, you have to really want to. Not just kinda, sorta, but really really.
Why is that? Because writing is expensive, time consuming, and at times, frustrating.
It is expensive to buy the magazines that you hope to submit stories to. You need equipment with which to produce your work. Editors don’t want a pile of hand-written work sent to them. They want flawlessly printed manuscripts. You must buy paper to print your work on. Sometimes the same work must be printed many times to get it just right. Postage and envelopes must be purchased to send your work in, unless you are lucky enough to be able to email your work. Even then, some publishers charge a fee to consider your work.
It is time consuming to do the reading and research necessary to prepare to write. You read about how to write. You read magazines and books in order to find out what is selling as well as what has already been done. You read to find out what type of stories a particular magazine will accept. Sometimes you have to read a ton of magazines to find a match for your story. You also must do research to make sure you know what you are talking about if you choose to use certain facts in your story. Even though your story may be fiction, you have to seem knowledgeable about the place or subject the story is about. Otherwise you will lose the readers confidence in your writing.
The frustrations can be endless. The story never comes out on paper the way you pictured it in your mind. Getting the story to flow correctly takes many hours of revision. Getting spelling and grammar correct takes at least another hour. Then there is always that elusive element that you struggle to infuse. The mysterious something that just makes your story “work.” Sometimes that something won’t occur to you for weeks, months or even years. Then you finally get it down on paper. After revising and revising your revisions for the billionth time. You have gotten friends to go over it, since you have butchered, hacked and finally made yourself sick of reading your own work. You print it, mail it and wait agonizing weeks or months for a response. Then finally, you receive in the mail or your email a response. Nine times out of ten, you are honored with a lovely rejection. Hopefully you have received helpful instead of only harsh comments on your work.
Then you have to buck up, take a deep cleansing breath, let out a primal scream and do it all again.
Anyone who doesn’t absolutely love to write would never go through all this!
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