has anyone gotten anything published?

Interesting. I am currently taking a fanfic and spending my free time adapting it into a novel that is not a fanfic. Purely for the luvs. But this project is not bound to someone else's schedule, so I guess I have no paying clients to shirk or schedule to sweep clean. Long hours for months years without pay, definitely.

Maybe when people say "write because you love to write" they mean "do not choose a career in writing unless you love it so much that you would pursue it as a hobby regardless of what you do to earn money."

Me? It sickens me to consider withholding a story I write from people who might enjoy it because they are not willing to pay money to read it. (It would make me a hypocrite, considering all the shit I download without paying for it... )

 

@Artist369 : Wise words, and very true. I have to say, though, that I haven't had much of that problem in photography, but then I don't have clients as such, I produce art, it's available on various paying websites, people buy it or not, but there is no negotiation. However, the number of times I've been stitched up with photographing a friend's or family member's wedding/graduation/birthday party...

I think the problem with art is that it can be very expensive. I'm looking for a water-inspired piece for my living room, something in glass and layers, maybe some gold and silver veins running through it, like waves on a sparkly afternoon, ( i can see it in my head) you know how much that kind of thing would cost? Thousands! I found a great coffee table, basically oak, split in half (with wavy edges), some rough glass blown and inserted... £8000 ! For the small one! It's a difficult situation for both the artist and the connoisseur.

 

One of the miracles of humankind (arguably the miracle) is to draw artistry from nothing but information.

 

Selbbin, as I stated, I love creating art. It's my passion. It's what gets me up- that need to create. I love it so much, working doesn't feel like work most of the time (except that it takes a long time to create anything and time is worth something). That's why I chose to spend my whole life fine-tuning that skill. Most of my online network of artists are the same. Honestly, I don't know anyone who does this professionally who doesn't love art. It's kind of a given. Like a musician who loves music.

But I don't tell a plumber he's pitiful for going into plumbing if he doesn't love it. He has bills to pay. That work needs doing. He's not less of a man for that. THAT'S the damaging thought that I am talking about. Let's not shame people for choosing a profession, regardless of their motivations. We don't do it for other trades, music, art, and writing shouldn't be any different. I only say this because I've been called some rather derogatory things for turning down 'art for the luvs' jobs. It's a real discrimination, and it's become a real issue in the industry, between writers, producers, and artists.

And I suppose my neighbor example wasn't the greatest. Lets change that up. Would you ask the excavation company down the street to dig out your backyard for free? And would you expect him to? Honestly and truly expect him to? And if so, why?

Now that's something I can whole-heartily agree with you on. XD

 

I like writing for myself. I also want other people to enjoy reading it. And if that means they pay me, all the better. I think I'm more motivated by the idea of fans than money. But, I'm doing this for myself mostly.

 

You'd be amazed at how many people have to do just that.

 

I think you have to enjoy the whole writing process and the feeling of creating something and the discovery as the story unfolds, to have a chance of even finishing a novel. It sounds like you're starting out with the wrong approach here. Sure, most writers want their stories to be read and appreciated, but If you can't deal with the knowledge that it might (and probably will) be rejected quite a few times even before it gets accepted, then I think you'll have a hard time finishing anything. And then you'll never know what could have been of you as a writer. Writing is taking risks. The risk of not finishing, the risk of it not becoming what you wanted, the risk of getting rejected, the risk of people not understanding what you wanted to say with your story, the risk of getting bad reviews that everyone can read... You need a whole lot of passion to keep writing with that knowledge.

 

If you match this description, how did you get to where you are now, and do you have any advice?

 

I know this is a broad ranging, if not a personally touchy subject with some; however, whenever I scan through the posts on this Creative Writing forum, I often wonder if some of the posters are actually serious about having their work published.

If some of these posters ever sent their posts to an editor, the editor would look at the first sentence, scratch a huge red X on the entire post and send it back with a note telling him/her to find another career.

Writing for publication is so fiercely competitive one has to wonder how serious some of the posters are about writing for publication; as they so often indicate. It could be that some of the posters do not realize how bad their written grammar actually is.

I will admit openly that my grammatical skills need a lot of work; however, I really do try to learn how to use a higher level of grammatical skills before posting or submitting any work for the public to read. This even goes for writing a letter to the editor in our local news paper.

Okay, now I am ready to eaten for lunch by a dozen or so posters .

 

I know of one for certain. AJ Pruitt has written several works for many of the major publications. I am not certain of this; however, I think he is retired, but still works at writing in his spare time. You can find his posts in search, I think.

I hope he responds to this thread.

 

When you say "submitting any work for the public to read" are you including this forum?

I do think that posters here should make their posts as correct as they know how, rather than just typing pellmell and posting without fixing errors. But I don't think that it would make sense for people to have to improve their writing skills before posting to a forum that exists for the purpose of improving one's writing skills.

 

I'm writing to be published.

Do you mean their comments or their work? Because posting comments is hardly a sign of a great writer as far as I'm concerned. Forums are little more than conversation. It's informative, but no black tie, it's casual.

Grammar isn't so much an issue ( in my head ) as style. ( I'm not advocating throw it out - mind you ) But if you have no style only perfect grammar what's the point? If you have style but you're grammar isn't perfect whose to know or care? As far as the reader is concerned it could be intentional.

 

I can't agree; you need 'em both. Errors throw me completely out of the story.

 

I don't know. I've been reading The Glamour of Grammar and he put two paragraphs from two award winning novels. Both paragraphs ( if you didn't know who wrote them ) would've been called on for their run-on sentences and fragments. But to clean them up would've lost some of the style. I'm not saying throw out grammar but sometimes I think being militant about it can deaden style.

 

I wouldn't say that run-on sentences and fragment are errors; I'd say that they're nonstandard, which I treat as a different category.

What do I mean by errors? I hesitate to look snarkish, but your post had an ideal pair of examples:

If you have style but you're grammar isn't perfect whose to know or care?

I read that as

If you have style but you are grammar isn't perfect whose to know or care?

My brain asks, "You are grammar? How can someone be grammar?" It only asks it for a fraction of a second, and then it corrects to, "Oh, she means YOUR. OK, read the sentence again."

And then, "Whose? What...Oh, she means who's. OK, read it again again. OK, now I know what she meant in the sentence, but I've lost track of what she was saying. I'll read the whole paragraph again. OK, got it. Moving in..."

So I can figure out what you mean, but reading is in large part about flow, and those issues disrupt the flow If there are one or two of those per paragraph, or even one or two per page, the reading of the book is a constant stop/start/stop/start, and soon I'm going to give up, because it's no fun.

 

You're/ your.
Lol. Typical that I look goofy, trying to say grammar isn't that important and then get one of those ( for me ) tricky words.
Back to my grammar books and my list of confusable words.

 

I definitely do not mean posting bad grammar in this forum , or any open forum discussion. This is where -the want to be- or -the never to be- writers can get an honest evaluation of their writing. Being that this is a forum for those who are interested in writing, shouldn't their mind set to be to put their best foot forward?


When I pick up a book to read, if the first few pages show bad grammar, it spoils the entire story line for me. I find I am constantly on the look out for other grammatically bad sentence structure or word use.


Anything that interrupts or stops the flow of a story is a huge negative when trying to captivate the reader’s attention. I read somewhere within this forum that a good author creates a moving picture in the reader’s mind and anything that stops that movie can be or should be considered a flaw in the author’s work.

 

I have no need to compete in that game because I simply write in order to present something to the public. I try to present it well because that which I present to the public deserves a good presentation.

 

I'm glad someone else brought it up but you know what? it bugs the hell out of me too.

Saying that, no-one's perfect (least of all me) and at the end of the day, this is, as someone said, a place for informal chats about writing, it's not a group of elitist people who won't accept anyone who happens to confuse their whose/who's, you're/yours and their/there's.

As conversations go, you don't repeat them in your head, editing for grammar and syntax before opening your mouth and speaking so why, on a conversation forum, would you want to super-edit your posts?

 

I do so because a forum is a permanent record available to the public. It is part of the web, and the web deserves to be taken seriously. The audience is more than the people posting; it includes people three years from now who happen upon the thread in a Google search.

 

I agree.

This is why I hate it when a very good friend of mine (who is absolutely fabulous with Facebook) decides to post on my behalf on my book page. She has some great ideas for posts but grammar and spelling are non-existent which makes me look like a dick until I can log on and edit the post.

I've now got her into the habit of sending me the post via private message so that I can edit it before it goes "live".