In Molly's Humble Opinion 
a place for my opinions on a wide variety of subjects including writing...
they may not be so humble, but they're one woman's opinions...

Are You Sure You Want to Be a Writer?

When did you first think you might want to be a writer?  Was it when you wrote that second-grade poem your grandmother loved so much? Is that what planted the seed?  If you could be so adored with just a few scribbled words, maybe you were onto something here. Write a few more of these, and you'd be solidly in the will and maybe get a steady supply of ice cream cones - forever!  Grandma was a great audience.

Some would-be writers begin with just such an experience. A few continue, get serious, and eventually get beyond grandma's praise, but many more stay pretty much on that same level with grandma replaced by spouse, teacher,  judge of the local literary contest, a few willing friends and maybe eventually a chance to read in public.  These are all fine and dandy reasons to keep writing if they satisfy your soul. 

There's some confusion about this question of who really is - or is not - a writer.  We generally agree that a professional writer is someone who makes a living at the writing trade, and these folks are generally editors, journalists, technical writers, copy writers...something along those lines. They're usually - though not always - very good at what they do.  And they get paid for it.  Every time.

My jazz musician friends use this definition as well.  You can be the best guitar player ever, but if you don't get paid for your work, you don't call yourself a professional.  Unless you want to take grief and, believe me, drummers and bass players can give plenty of grief.

Published writers - now we step up a bit and call them published "authors," are in a different category. These folks write and may or may not get paid for it, depending on the whims of the market.  Publishing doesn't always mean pay.  Oops, did I disillusion anyone out there? Published authors may be novelists, short story writers, playwrights (although playwrights usually also like to be produced), poets, writers of those self-help books I mentioned earlier, memoirists (will we ever see an end to memoirs?) or general nonfiction writers like historians and gossipy biographers. 

So, the question is, What kind of writer do you aspire to be?  It's an important question and on it rests all else.  There are different levels of commitment that must be made if you want to be a published author in the best sense of the word.  And it's good to understand the kind of commitment it takes to get there.  Even with "published" there are many levels beginning wth literary fiction and working down to what used to be called pulp fiction.  Some of today's self-publishing, online, has replaced pulp fiction.  One proprietor of an online publishing outfit said last year he thought they had published more bad poetry in that one year than had ever been published before.  Fiction. Poetry. Good is good and bad is crap.

And actually, there are some standards that apply to good literary writing.  John Gardner in his On Becoming a Novelist offers some of these - the writer doesn't play games with the reader ("in which storytelling is confused with puzzle-making"), the writer is 'generous' and gives a complete and self-contained story.  Good literary writing, "...is intellectually and emotionally significant. It is elegant and efficient; that is, it does not use more scenes, characters, physical details, and technical devices than it needs to do its job. It has design. It gives that special pleasure we get from watching, with appreciative and impressed eyes, a performance..."

I would add to this that good literary writing does not happen without effort, revisions, some angst and a lot of reading as preparation.
Good literary writing does not happen in a specific number of days or pages or as a result of the Twelve Tips for Good Writing. 

Given Gardner's excellent standards, being published no long serves as the criteria for good writing as opposed to, well - crap.  (And plenty of that is being published these days by large publishing houses as well as individuals.) But if it's your crap and you love it and your grandmother loves it, and your local writing group loves it, that may be good enough for you.  Really.  If that's what you want to write, nobody will come after you with pitchforks and torches for t writing which wouldn't pass muster in a larger circle.  Nobody will come after you with a publishing contract either, but if that's what you want, then you can stop signing up for expensive classes and conferences. You're already good to go and can just stay home and write. 

I'll be the first to wish you well and to applaud your efforts!
And I'm not kidding. 

But if you want to be a serious writer, if you want to achieve what Gardner sets out, it'll take a little more effort and commitment. No, it'll take a lot more effort and commitment. And a sharper eye, a sharper ear, and the willingness to acknowledge you could do better.  That "good enough" is not good enough. That "It just came out and doesn't need any revision," is not how good writing happens. That writing for grandma is not good enough. If this is the route you choose to take, the kind of writer you choose to be, you won't need my applause. You'll be getting much richer rewards in your writer's heart and soul.

Here's the thing - a serious writer writes for the love of writing.  Everybody else writes for grandma. 




IMHO
copyright, 2010, Molly Larson Cook