The Myths of Authorship

[cupidsbow]

A while ago, I promised an essay on the Myths of Authorship. It ended up taking a lot longer to write than I thought it would, mainly because I kept starting to rant insanely. Then I'd re-read what I'd written and delete a few thousand of the more insane words

Comments

[cupidsbow]

I know. But I wanted to show that even with an absolute best case scenario, the author isn't going to get wildly rich.

Except for Tim Winton... all bets are off with him :)

[msilverstar]

FABULOUS!

In many ways, it's easier for me because I hadn't written a lick of fiction since I was sixteen and don't have any hunger to be published. Plus, I've hung out with professional writer, and read a lot of interviews. No magic, just work and luck.

[cupidsbow]

I'm glad you liked it. I found writing this very cathartic in the end. It helped me focus a lot of my free-floating anxiety :)

[llbatt]

Anyone can write a story. I have kids that do it all the time. Being able to write one down and write one that's publishable is the difference. I've always maintained that I can teach anyone to write a story. But the gap between that and writing something that sings is internal, and can't be taught.

If it could, the SF writing in this country wouldn't suck as much as it does.

[cupidsbow]

Yes, anyone can write a story, and I'm actually pro anyone having a go at writing. I'm just a leetle tired of people who have never even tried telling me it's easy to do it well. Perhaps I should have made that clearer... but I have ranted a lot about the democracy of writing before, so I think I'll restrain myself :)

[llbatt]

Sure, but it's a set of skills like any other. Dedication and passion help. Ask any mechanic how pissed off they get when they see the bodgy backyard jobs that pull up for a service. There will always be those who do and those who theink they cancan do, and they'll not always be the same subset :)

[shrydar]

Well said, both of you.

[angriest]

Another myth of writing: "Writing scripts is *so* much easier than writing prose. I mean, have you *seen* the quality of movie out there?!! I could write something that good in a week!!"

BTW, I would politely suggest that Anne Rice has in fact been remarkably consistent in the quality of her fiction... ;-)

[cupidsbow]

Re: scripts being "easy". Yeah, that's a good one! I could have easily gone on with a few more myths, but decided to stop at ten. There's such a thing as flogging a dead horse, after all.

As for Anne Rice... you are such a bitch ;)

[stephen_dedman]

I don't think I know anyone who actually believes that writing a script is easier than writing prose... though I wouldn't be at all surprised if many people believe it's easier to make a living writing scripts than prose.

Of course, there are plenty of movies and TV shows one could point to and say "if you wrote a book that bad, no publisher would buy it"... While this may or not be true *now* (at least for first novelists) because the demand for books is so much smaller than the demand for TV scripts, it demonstrably wasn't true even fifty years ago. And it doesn't mean that it's easy to write scripts - only that it's much more difficult to write *good* ones, particularly if you have to meet television deadlines.

[maharetr]

Partly related to topic:
I had one of those fan-fic writer vs. "real" writer moments literally just this afternoon. I bumped into one of my BA tutors, and he asked how my writing was going, whether I was able to write and study without doing actual creative writing units to make it legitimate, I suppose. "A Thousand Memories" is still quite fresh in my mind, I've raved at you about it, I'm still getting the occasional FB etc, and I quite proudly said "Yes, as much as I can, I'm writing. I've just written a ... short story."

There's a considerable squeamishness for me about telling people I write fan fic, something that I think would be totally absent if I told people I'd just submitted something to Boarderlands etc.

[cupidsbow]

I totally understand. It annoys me though, that there's that widespread sneer about fanfic. It's so thoughtless and uninformed.

Oh well. I guess I'll just have to do my bit to change the world in that regard ;)