I got up this morning, and read the thirty or so questions that people had left in the last 8 hours. And apart from the few that wanted to tell me that, honestly, thereâs nothing in the whole world like a photo of a gentleman holding a small yellow chainsaw, most of the rest of them were writing questions, about how you start writing and how you continue, and how you keep going when people criticise you and so on. And I thought, all this is stuff Iâve covered so extensively over on my blog at neilgaiman.com⊠and 90% of the answers were probably in one post. It was called On Writing.
I really donât want to sit here giving you my life story. Itâs boring and too long for me to write or for you to sit and have time to read. I was just told by a graduate school that because of my shabby GPA - a 3.07 - (not my writing sample)that I wouldnât be admitted to their creative writing program. Anyway, with my writing, itâs just seemed like one thing after another, and I have no one to give me input on any of it since I, quite literally, come from a family of engineers, all very concrete thinkers. My question is this: when do you just give up? I donât want to but it seems like the only logical thing to do. Iâm so tired and frustrated with being deemed a failure. The one week I was actually able to give up writing was the most miserable week of my life. I know youâre busy and I really donât expect you to answer this email. I just thought it might be nice to talk to someone who might just be able to understand, even if - at this point - Iâm just sending a message out into the ether.Â
Jarett UnderwoodÂ
Iâm not sure what getting into a creative writing program has to do with being a writer. Go and look at Teresa Nielsen Haydenâs list of the 14 things a slush-reader or editor is looking for , and whether youâve done a creative writing program, have an MFA in writing, or are in fact currently teaching a course in creative writing isnât on the list.Â
(For the record, Iâve never been involved in a creative writing program. In my case, that was mostly because I knew I wanted to be a writer, and had enough hubris to know that Iâd rather make my mistakes on the job. It was also because I had a vague suspicion that people in authority might suggest that I should write respectable but dull fiction, and then Iâd be forced to kill them, and it would all end in tears or in prison. Many of my friends have enjoyed creative writing programs no end. Some of them teach them.)Â
As for giving up, well, sure, if you want to. Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: itâs always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins. It has no job security of any kind, and depends mostly on whether or not you can, like Scheherazade, tell the stories each night thatâll keep you alive until tomorrow. There are undoubtedly hundreds of easier, less stressful, more straightforward jobs in the world. Personally, I canât think of anything else Iâd rather do, but thatâs me.Â
If you want to be a writer, write. You may have to get a day job to keep body and soul together (I cheated, and got a writing job, or lots of them, to feed me and pay the rent). If you arenât going to be a writer, then go and be something else. Itâs not a god-given calling. Thereâs nothing holy or magic about it. Itâs a craft that mostly involves a lot of work, most of it spent sitting making stuff up and writing it down, and trying to make what you have made up and written down somehow better.Â
I think for me the tipping point was when I was a very young man. It was late at night, and I was lying in bed, and I thought, as I often thought, âI could be a writer. Itâs what I want to be. I think itâs what I am.â And then I imagined myself in my eighties, possibly even on my deathbed, thinking that same thought, in a life when Iâd never written anything. And Iâd be an old man, with my life behind me, still telling myself I was really a writer â and I would never know if I was kidding myself or not.Â
So I thought it might be better to go off and be a writer, even if what I learned from the experience was that I wasnât a writer. At least that way, Iâd know.Â
If itâs input you need, find a helpful bunch of likeminded people, either in real life or on the web. And, as mentioned here before, there's Clarion and Clarion West and Viable Paradise among others for the would-be SF-Fantasy writers. The SFWA has a list of workshops and groups, both virtual and visitable at http://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/links-to-writers-workshops/.Â
It does help, to be a writer, to have the sort of crazed ego that doesnât allow for failure. The best reaction to a rejection slip is a sort of wild-eyed madness, an evil grin, and sitting yourself in front of the keyboard muttering âOkay, you bastards. Try rejecting this!â and then writing something so unbelievably brilliant that all other writers will disembowel themselves with their pens upon reading it, because thereâs nothing left to write. Because the rejection slips will arrive. And, if the books are published, then you can pretty much guarantee that bad reviews will be as well. And youâll need to learn how to shrug and keep going. Or you stop, and get a real job.Â
titsay
yousharknotpass
stormborns
pixelskylines
areudirty
gummygunk
