I think it's important to insert Perseverance between Frustration and Success. Frustration is too often an unsurpassed barrier, and it's important to see the path out of that tangled thicket.
True…Perseverance is the link between frustration and success. I guess my above implies an initial determination / resolve to succeed…otherwise it would be quitting time once the enthusiasm ( fun) wanes.
I'm surprised this is such a popular thread. I thought it would be a given that success in literature is a mix of both talent and toil.
Hmm - what you do mean by this? I don't write for publication. But I do publish my stuff on a blog and I do have at least a thousand readers, maybe more - I've been told that WordPress stats aren't accurate and are a bit on the low side and I'm lowballing the estimate. I work. And I work hard. For fun, yeah. Two readers told me today that I should be publishing professionally but I don't know if I want everything that comes with that - deadlines, pressure, editing suggestions based only on what the corporation thinks will sell better, etc. What I want is to write, and I want my writing to be the best it can possibly be. This isn't messing around for fun. Yeah, I'm sharing the product for free. But my art is my life. It's who I am. It's in my genes - my great grand uncle's fiddle is in the Smithsonian and my great uncle who's still alive is known as one of the best old timey musicians around. There's a well-respected genre of music made by my relatives and named for the road I grew up on. I come from people who take their art, their "hobby", very seriously. They also have fun with it, and most of the time they played their music for community parties and events. None of them ever set out to make money at it. I showed my mother a documentary about Round Peak music recently. She pointed out my uncles and my cousins and she said "You got their music in your blood. I bet you could play it if you were around it." I answered "I do play it. On my keyboard." So yeah - I do it for fun. I do it for free. It's a gift I give to my online community, the way my forebears gave their music to their community. And just like they're the best at what they do, I set out to be the best at what I do. A gift isn't worth much if you don't put your whole heart into it. My writer's sense tells me that should be the end but my growing sense of other people and online communication tells me I need to make what I mean clearer. I guess I was just standing up for the idea that writing for fun, writing for free, does not mean that you don't work at it. And also for the idea that we're not all genetic carbon copies and I do imagine that I have some music in my blood. And due to nurturing - the "toil" bit of the equation - those genes expressed themselves through words instead of through a fiddle or a banjo.
I think maybe those that write for themselves is different than writing for fun. I write completely differently for a first draft, diary etc which is for me, its to get the ideas out. For me thats when the storyteller has freereign. The writer comes out later during the editing stage.
Hey there Medley! Yeah, first write for yourself, then for your audience. Because if you don't enjoy it, how do you expect your audience to enjoy it? T2
I must agree that to become a good writer, one must have some level of talent, even if it is a mere shred. With said talent, they also need to put forth a lot of effort and hardwork to further their abilities. Another thing that may be added, and I may have missed this in my readings of the posts, is a strong desire. Even if one was born with lots of talent, and puts forth an effort were to write, most often then naught they would not get far if they did not have the desire to fuel them. It also works on the countering part. As a writer, I possibly possess some talent ( I myself am not sure of this), but I also toil through thousand of hours of reading, writing programs and constantly find myself going back to the dictionary, and old school lessons on writing. Which yes, I still have my english notes from when I was going to school, amazingly, they still remain quite helpful in my toil to improve. As I was saying though, what makes me do this is the desire to improve my writing and become a "good writer". So yes, talent and toil can make the writer, but personally, I believe it can only be done if that person has the desire to become such a writer.
I have in front of me a copy of 'Write Away' by bestselling author Elizabeth George. On page 280 she says-: (You will be published if you possess three qualities: talent, passion, and discipline. You will probably be published if you possess two of these qualities: either a combination of talent and discipline or a combination of passion and discipline. You will likely be published if you possess neither talent nor passion but still have discipline... ...But if all you possess is talent or passion, if all you possess is talent and passion, you will not be published.) unquote. So I'm afraid it looks like discipline is the main ingredient needed.
It wasn't sufficient for Elizabeth George to simply state that discipline is crucial? Perhaps Write Away wouldn't have reached 280+ pages if she had.
What does any of this have anything to do with what I said? Or did you just take it as an excuse to try and impress with your Round Peak Fiddle family? You have nothing in your blood- it's just blood and everyone around you has blood just like it. There is a lot in between writing for fun, and writing for money, both of which are bad motives for any writer. A writer, in my eyes is not somebody who is bored one day and decides, that they will write a book to pass the time, or for fun. Fun, is not equal to personal pleasure. You can write for personal pleasure, without writing for fun. If you write for fun your mode of writing is juvenile, and un-sophisticated. Your end product would probably be that of Twilight, or something very similar. Perhaps it will be a good, interesting story, (Which Twilight wasn't) but I do not consider being a good writer is as simple as writing good, interesting stories. A good writer, which is obviously subjective in it's very definition, is one who has more a sophisticated motive, more a passion than just ''for fun'' to write. One who does not completely dream up a story, by this I mean, the general undertone, not the petty details, and does not just decide ''I will write another story today'' but one that is naturally compelled to do so.
Thats how my story started, sat down with a pad and pen and started to write. It took the place of my usual doodling in front of the TV. Six months later I have a novel which has an interesting story and is ready to try and sell. If as many people take joy out of my work as they do out of Twilight I'd be delighted. I have never read Twilight, but for me being a good writer is telling a story or imparting information in a way people get something from it, even if that is merely enjoyment. Whether or not you approve of or like Stephenie Meyer she has achieved that. She can engage her readers. I don't overly like the way Patricia Cornwell or Alannah Knight write their books but I enjoy their stories immensely and they are worth my time and money. And I am having a total ball writing my books they are fun, the characters are great to spend time with. My writing style is probably not sophisticated, but I do know throughout school and university it stood out in a good way. My teachers didn't need to check a list to know if I had not done my homework, and I had lecturers ask me to do their assignments at university because they liked my work.
'Fraid not. If you are juvinile and unsophisticated then your writing will be juvinile and unsophisticated. Tolkein was a lover of ancient and fictitious languages. The Lord of the Rings (commonly acknowledged as a masterwork*) was written as an afterthought to Tolkein's main project - constructing the elvish languages. Tolkein began writing TLotR for fun, as it were. Having said that, I cannot agree with the sentiment that a writer must write for the sheer joy of it for the work to be any good. Dickens wrote for a living. Shakespeare wrote for a living. They wrote for the public of the time so they could sell their work and eat. As always, it is neither one nor the other. There are 6 billion people on the planet. Still think there is one rule for them all?
It stood in a good way? Good for you. However, good relative to the majority does not make a good writer. There is more to human aspect than you might think. You can be juvenile in one aspect, and very mature in the next. Figures, this is the person talking about human diversity. Tolkiens book came out of a previous passion, his passion for elvic languages fueled his writing, so yes, Tolkien was a good writer. The topic was anyways, what makes a good writer, not what makes a good book. You don't have to write for the sheer joy of it, you can write for the sheer pain of it, or even the sheer bleek of it. I see you're from the UK, well, I'm sorry to tell you but Shakespeare and Dickens are extremely overrated.
@RotStern I'm not entirely convinced you fully understand what people write. Still, it's entertaining. You did get me. I am from the UK and ergo I LOVE Dickens and Shakespeare.
What people write? What do you mean by this? Weren't you telling me sooner that there are 6 billion people in this world and no one rule works for them all? Then how can you generalize with what ''people'' write.
me too, Grassic Gibbon and Burns are great too Well umm for me the good writer is the one who people enjoy reading. I've achieved my goal with my writing people enjoy reading it. If it makes a couple of quid that would be nice but it already has its fans You may despise Twilight but I think the fact you have such strong feelings says she has achieved a lot with her writing most of us won't manage. She is a good writer because she engaged many readers.
Why say this? It's off topic and an out-of-left-field slap. Please don't do this kind of thing. It's petty and the mods don't want these threads to degenerate into flame wars.
The existance of talant? I recently read a book by researcher Geoff Colvin about talent, and its role, or really lack of role, among top performaners. His book concluded that research about top performance, learing and excellency, no one has yet proved or found anything pointing to the existance of talent playing a role. Talent defined as "learning more with less practice". I think this is an interesting result. The findings was the only connection they so far found in research was between bulk practice and performance, and high quality deliberate practice and performance. Bulk practice being the normal form of practice we encounter normally. The thesis was that this only takes you so far. Most people drive a car every day and gets loads of practice driving a car, but still don't become car race drivers or trick drivers or even amazing every day drivers. The other kind of practice was the deliberate kind of mind-numbingly intent and boring practice pros go through. The hour and hours a golfer, circus artist or musician spend perfecting a single aspect of their performance at the time. And it was that kind of practice that sets the pros apart from the ones preforming on an average level. Be it composer or top salesmen. I think this reteach is fascinating, and would like you opinion and reflections on how this view would or would not apply to writing.
What's the title of the book? I'd love to take a look at it I think this would absolutely apply to writing. My cousin (he's 21 or 22) is writing a book and asked me to take a look at it. He has put a lot of surface time into it (it's HUGE...think 300,000 words) but when I read it I could tell that once he had written a sentence, he moved forward and never looked back. I read a few drafts of this behemoth, and in each draft he simply added more---he never revised what he had already written. This I would liken to the normal form of practice you mentioned. By all means he is practicing his craft, and has plenty of words and sentences under his belt. However, this doesn't mean he will get published. The deliberate practice as it applies to writing is probably akin to the intense re-writing of sentences to get just the right word, the perfect sensory detail or description. Yeah, some people may see writing your opening line 28 times as boring---but it's necessary. And spending time really honing your craft is the most essential part of being a (published) writer. That's just my take on it, anyway
It sounds like it would apply very well to writing. If you practice using point of view, or writing dialogue, or just finding the right turn of phrase, for hours upon hours, you get better at it.
I believe in talent, to an extent. When it comes to hobbies, that people enjoy to do and have been doing for a while, they (obviously) improve. I, for example, love to draw and have been for years. People, when they see what I draw, simply ignore the fact that I've had practice and have been drawing for years, and simply say I draw good because "I have talent." Which, I disagree with. If you were to write a short story, give it to a friend who is a non-writer, and ask for a critique, they'll most likely say, "Wow. You have talent." Even if you say, "Well, I've been writing for years," they'll still respond with, "Well, still. I'd never be able to write that." I bet you 5 bucks. While I believe talent exists, I do not believe it's an excuse to not still put in hours of practice to improve. ...Wow. I really hope this makes as much sense as I hope it does.
This topic was just recently discussed at length, and shut down after it became more heated and wandered off topic. Let's not get it going again at this time.
I've just done a few hunts on Google and realised exactly how difficult it is to find writing clubs. Not places where you can take writing lessons, just groups that get together and write/discuss writing. Am I mad or stupid? Do these things even exist or am I just not doing it right? There don't seem to be any online listings for that sort of thing at all, I haven't had a chance to check either at my library or education centre but with the way things are going I don't have much hope. Maybe they only exist outside Australia or - God forbid - on TV. Boy, that wouldn't surprise me.
