Thursday's Guest Thoughts with Robin Cain
The Business of Writing
by Robin Cain
I am a writer. That doesn’t necessarily mean I am any good at it or that I am successful. It simply means I spend hours and hours a day converting taps on my computer keys into words I hope someone else will enjoy reading.
I willingly choose to spend my days creating imaginary characters and injecting them into the veins of scenes of my own creation. Some are based on experience. Others are based on either divine inspiration, research or a combination of the two. It’s an imaginary world I inhabit day after day and it’s not one many others who don’t participate in the craft can even begin to understand. I’m okay with that.
To be a writer is to have a thick skin and an abiding belief that someone out there (hopefully lots of someones) will enjoy reading what I write. To own the words a reader anxiously absorbs brings a sense of joy beyond description. The hours spent scratching my head, writing and rewriting my words, and crafting my story to perfect the rhythm in each sentence is validated by my reader’s emotions and support of my craft.
There are millions of others like me, but, I dare say, only hundreds of best-selling authors and an even smaller couple handfuls of big, BIG names. With the current upheaval in the publishing industry doing battle with deep discounting by major retailers, the increasing numbers of seemingly-more-selective-than-ever agents reviewing submissions and the dramatic increases in e-books and piracy, it appears the road ahead is becoming much steeper for many of us.
What keeps me, or any other writer for that matter, going day after day? How do we stay encouraged and inspired to become part of that sacred list of successful sought-after writers? Here are my thoughts.
There are more options available today for writers than at any other time in the history of publishing. The shrinking routes of yesterday are rapidly being enhanced and supplemented with new and exciting highways to reach a vast number of readers. Where big traditional publishing houses are seemingly failing both authors and readers alike, Indie publishers, the Internet and industrious fed-up writers are forging new inroads.
Yet none of what’s transpiring in today’s publishing industry changes the simple basic facts all writers must acknowledge. Writing is a craft with rules. Poor writing is still poor writing and lack of knowledge is still a fatal mistake.
Today’s writer must be willing to research, market and network while still devoting a fair share of time to their craft. Many writers are not equipped or skilled in the business side of writing and that must change if they desire success. Whether one sells a book to a big name publisher or decides to go the way of self-publishing, the tasks involved are all the same.
As with most things in life, one cannot and should not rely on others for their success. It is up to the author to sell his product. Our words are our vehicle and we must stay in the driver’s seat to get where we want to go. An author can hire all the expensive publicists, marketers and errand-runners they can afford, but it still comes down to having knowledge of the industry, the market and the trends. A writer with a dream of “just writing” will wind up doing just that – writing and never selling. If one doesn’t take a hands-on approach to getting their product out there, no one will ever buy it.
At the end of the day it is the quality of the product that matters most. A writer, no matter how good they believe their work to be, must learn to welcome a different perspective. That means having early readers (not just biased friends or family members) and being ready to accept their criticism and changes. If hiring the appropriate experts to gain insight on how to improve one’s craft is necessary, well, so be it. Making the efforts required to get to a place that satisfies one’s needs is just that – work – and there are no shortcuts to success. To write is to be a student; constantly open to learning, experimentation and, most of all, failure. Show me a writer who has never been rejected and I’ll show you a writer who has never submitted.
What does it take to be a student? If another writer is open to helping you, accept it willingly and gratefully. Join writer’s groups. Read as much as is available in your genre and study what those authors did right. Research agents and their clients before you go blindly submitting your work. Study market trends and recent deals in your genre. Spend time every day getting your name and writing out to the public in some form or fashion, even if it’s only to comment on another writer’s blog. Network with other authors and take the time to read their work (Karma is a powerful thing). In other words, engage in the business of writing. And when you’ve done all that, engage some more.
After reading all this, some may wonder why do we writers continue to do battle? It is because creating the perfect sentence, crafting the perfect scene and watching our characters inhabit a world made entirely from our own imagination is our calling. Whether it’s a million readers or just our old Aunt Mabel and her five ex-husbands who enjoy what we write, it’s all the same in the end to many of us. We write day after day and night after night – willingly, gratefully and, in many cases, blindly - just to bring our thoughts to life. When it comes down to the beauty of the craft, a million readers would be fabulous, but old Aunt Mabel will do.
Robin Cain, a contributing writer for The Examiner, lives in Scottsdale, AZ. Her novel, WHEN DREAMS BLEED, is scheduled for publication in early 2010. Her musings on relationships and all things related can be found at http://www.examiner.com/X-16469-Scottsdale-Relationships-Examiner. More information on can be found at www.robincain.com