It's an age-old argument and one Jen and I have had. High art vs. Consumer art.
You could write the best novel ever, but without a little luck marketing, publishing, a literary agent, you'd probably never get rich from it. Starving artist. In the age of the Internet, self-publishing makes getting stuff out easier, unfortunately there's a lot more crap a reader has to sift through to find anything of quality. This is why originality and professionalism is important if you want to be taken seriously.
Or maybe you could write something that catered to what people wanted (I hear vampires are popular?), and get rich that way. "Why yes, I am a sell out. I guess I'll just have to comfort myself by sleeping on my huge piles of money."
And then there's me. I get paid to write about doodads. The fiction I write for fun is about characters in a video game, but writing an actual novel isn't one of my priorities. If eating books was as good as reading books, I'd choose eating every time.
But we're all writers. Just like anyone can be a parent. :P
I guess in summary, the bar for entry to become a writer is very low. The big question is why do you write and what do you want to get out of it? And if you want things like recognition or wealth, it takes talent and effort just like any other job.
Ah I remember now. We were fighting over NaNoWriMo.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-10-05 04:55 pm (UTC)You could write the best novel ever, but without a little luck marketing, publishing, a literary agent, you'd probably never get rich from it. Starving artist. In the age of the Internet, self-publishing makes getting stuff out easier, unfortunately there's a lot more crap a reader has to sift through to find anything of quality. This is why originality and professionalism is important if you want to be taken seriously.
Or maybe you could write something that catered to what people wanted (I hear vampires are popular?), and get rich that way. "Why yes, I am a sell out. I guess I'll just have to comfort myself by sleeping on my huge piles of money."
And then there's me. I get paid to write about doodads. The fiction I write for fun is about characters in a video game, but writing an actual novel isn't one of my priorities. If eating books was as good as reading books, I'd choose eating every time.
But we're all writers. Just like anyone can be a parent. :P
I guess in summary, the bar for entry to become a writer is very low. The big question is why do you write and what do you want to get out of it? And if you want things like recognition or wealth, it takes talent and effort just like any other job.
Ah I remember now. We were fighting over NaNoWriMo.