There are stories of success and failure of all kinds. But pretty much all of them follow a similar pattern. Years of work before success. Learn to love or at least think the work is worth it, and success of a kind will come. It might not be enormous fame and wealth. In fact, it probably won't be. But you won't have toiled in vain. Let's just imagine the world is as cruel and unfair as you imagine it in your worst moments. Even then, I'd say developing the skills set of writing to express oneself as well as story telling are worth it Both skills help you to understand the deepest parts of your own psyche as well as human nature. Pretty cool, eh?
I just wrote on this extensively, so my thoughts. Writers write. We don't do it because it makes money, even though that's nice. We don't do it because it makes us famous, although some people like that too. We do it because it is a fundamental part of our being. We'd do it for free because that's what we do. Same thing with artists. They draw or whatever. Why? Because that's what they do. It is who they are.' But there are lots of people who look at what writers do and want to get the benefit of being a writer without actually being a writer. They show up in writer forums and ask "will my idea make money?" or "what are all the shortcuts?" These are not writers. These are people who want to use writing to achieve other goals. It takes the average writer 6 books to get one published. These are the people looking to get around that. They see writing and not getting paid for it to be a waste of time. Those people will not succeed like that. You only achieve success by putting in the time and the hard work and the endless string of "failures", building your skills, developing your talent and earning your stripes. There is no way forward except through the time and effort and "failure" that so many people don't want to deal with. If they're not making money by this time next week, they're not interested. They're also not writers.
This is very true except for the part about doing it for free. There are some places I would write for free, but the majority of time I am getting paid for my work. I guess I love writing so much I made it my job. I have one steady gig. The rest is up to me. I'm poor, but most of the time there is nothing I would rather do. I do have to bust my ass, and there are no shortcuts as much as we wish there were. Most of what I write does not get published or does not get published quickly. Not too long ago I had a short story accepted. I first wrote that story in 2012 and started submitting it at that time. It will come out next spring. That's also when I'll get pain. So, yeah, eight years for a few hundred buck... They don't all take so long, but a lot of them do.
I'm not saying some places that you'll publish for free, I mean doing it at all. I've seen far too many so-called "writers" who don't want to write ANYTHING, EVER unless they get paid for it. They don't want to write their first story unless there's a paycheck waiting at the end. They have no experience, they have no demonstrable skills, but damn it, they want money. They're not doing it because they enjoy writing, in fact, some say they don't, but they think they can make a buck and have wild-eyed dreams of making a mint while sitting around in their underwear, so that's what they want to do. These people need a serious introduction to reality.
