Who the hell reads these anyway?
Not a good mood today. It's monday... cloudy. What am I supposed to write in here? My english professor in college had us do a free writing exercise and said if you can't think of anything to write, write "I can't think of anything to write" until you can
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At one time I had high hopes of publishing several novels and stories. I have had three stories published, no books.
One summer I got ambitious and sent off at least a dozen or more manuscripts of my stories. Every single one of them was rejected.
I've tried two different novels with publishers. The first time I received a rejection on my initial novel, along with a critique of it. I reacted by trying to re-write it the way I "thought" this critic wanted. I could not do it. I have discovered I have to write for myself, the way I feel it and see it.
I cannot do formalae writing. Those who can, frequently make a good living - kicking out one mystery or sci-fi novel after another. There's another style of formalae writing -- the kind that results in books like Jackie Collins and the late Harold Robbins write --where the author is able to take basically the same characters and same story, just change the names, and the situations a little, sort of re-juggle the mixture--and voila--they've got another potboiler on the best seller list.
After I heard how many re-writes some authors do on their books, I was no longer quite so gung-ho regarding getting a novel published.
The same is true for my so-called artistic talents. I have just enough talent to impress my friends, not enough that anything I draw or paint will ever be hung in a gallery.
However, I think the true name of the game is "persistance." I have seen some of the worst nightmares hanging in art musuems, and I have seen some of the poorest, murkest writing published--and unfortunately tried to read some of it.
It's kind of like the blind man swinging a baseball bat--he's bound to hit one now and then, if he just keeps swinging.
That's the advice I've always given young writers. Learn all you can about your craft, and if it is truly important to you to be published, then just keep sending the manuscripts off.
You don't have to be talented to get published, but you do have to be persistent.
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