Roundup: On being a professional, 'real' writer.
A quiz on the Horror Writer's Association of L.A.'s website has provoked some indignation over the past couple days.
TEN QUESTIONS TO KNOW IF YOU’RE A PRO is a list of requirements for considering yourself a professional writer framed in the form of a quiz. A nicely passive-aggressive, unnecessarily judgmental, obnoxiously prescriptive, short-sighted bit of writing that falls firmly into creepy territory (this person's life must be pretty joyless and miserable, is all I'm saying).
I very much don't want to dogpile the original author, who made a misstep but doesn't deserve to have her door beaten down over it. (I doubt she anticipated it would draw this much attention.) I do think that it has sparked some great dialogue, and I do think that the original piece exemplifies a harmful and all-too-common school of thought that needs to be attacked and torn down, even as the author herself does not. (Frankly, this smacks of thoughtlessness, not malice.)
So, with that in mind, have links to some of the discussions sparked by the original article:
John Scalzi remarks that she is confusing process and product. In the comments, Chaosprime calls it "cargo cult reasoning," which I think covers it nicely.
Brian Keene reminds us that priorities are different for everyone.
Ursula Vernon may sum it up best.
This is pernicious and poisonous tripe. This serves no purpose but to make people who aren’t grimly self-confident feel bad, and make people who are grimly self-confident feel tired. If you read this and suffered a moment of angst, don’t.
You write, you’re a writer. You get paid to write, you’re a professional writer. If you aren’t a professional writer and you think of yourself as one anyway, the damage to me is surprisingly minimal.
Right on the nose.
And, finally, I just want to take the opportunity to point out that I covered the whole "what makes a Real Writer" thing a while back, right here.
I see the issue of disability brought up so very seldom in these cases. When it is brought up, it's usually by people condemning laziness and accusing people of hiding behind writers' block, often in exactly this sort of article. When people offer rebuttals to the flawed reasoning that says "There is only one right way to go about Being A Writer, and it is mine!", they almost never specifically address that issue. Well, I'm reminding everyone that not writing -- not being able to write -- is not always, or even usually, an issue springing from laziness. You can be a writer and have times where you are not able to write.
Tangentially related, I found this article about the toxicity of the idea that success is tied to sacrifice to be interesting.
X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:
TEN QUESTIONS TO KNOW IF YOU’RE A PRO is a list of requirements for considering yourself a professional writer framed in the form of a quiz. A nicely passive-aggressive, unnecessarily judgmental, obnoxiously prescriptive, short-sighted bit of writing that falls firmly into creepy territory (this person's life must be pretty joyless and miserable, is all I'm saying).
I very much don't want to dogpile the original author, who made a misstep but doesn't deserve to have her door beaten down over it. (I doubt she anticipated it would draw this much attention.) I do think that it has sparked some great dialogue, and I do think that the original piece exemplifies a harmful and all-too-common school of thought that needs to be attacked and torn down, even as the author herself does not. (Frankly, this smacks of thoughtlessness, not malice.)
So, with that in mind, have links to some of the discussions sparked by the original article:
John Scalzi remarks that she is confusing process and product. In the comments, Chaosprime calls it "cargo cult reasoning," which I think covers it nicely.
Brian Keene reminds us that priorities are different for everyone.
Ursula Vernon may sum it up best.
This is pernicious and poisonous tripe. This serves no purpose but to make people who aren’t grimly self-confident feel bad, and make people who are grimly self-confident feel tired. If you read this and suffered a moment of angst, don’t.
You write, you’re a writer. You get paid to write, you’re a professional writer. If you aren’t a professional writer and you think of yourself as one anyway, the damage to me is surprisingly minimal.
Right on the nose.
And, finally, I just want to take the opportunity to point out that I covered the whole "what makes a Real Writer" thing a while back, right here.
I see the issue of disability brought up so very seldom in these cases. When it is brought up, it's usually by people condemning laziness and accusing people of hiding behind writers' block, often in exactly this sort of article. When people offer rebuttals to the flawed reasoning that says "There is only one right way to go about Being A Writer, and it is mine!", they almost never specifically address that issue. Well, I'm reminding everyone that not writing -- not being able to write -- is not always, or even usually, an issue springing from laziness. You can be a writer and have times where you are not able to write.
Tangentially related, I found this article about the toxicity of the idea that success is tied to sacrifice to be interesting.
X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count: