The journey from naive beginner to jaded veteran - is anyone making a living?

New writers always think there is some magic formula to write a best seller and if they could just learn it they'd be rich and famous. The hucksters trying to lead the way are like old alchemists - we can turn your crap into gold. Promise.

I stick with writing cause I love it. Slow and steady wins the race.

 

If you don't love writing, you shouldn't be doing it. All of the people that I see saying "I can't write!" or "I'm not motivated!", those are the people who don't really like doing it or they'd be doing it. They have ulterior motives and that's why they don't get anywhere. If you really loved writing, if you weren't doing it for success, if you weren't doing it because you want to be known, then you'd be doing it every day. Those other things only come to people who actually give a damn about writing, rarely to the hacks who just want to make a buck.

 

Ultimately, it's all up to you. If you want to treat it like a fun sideline, feel free, just have realistic expectations for the future. I don't think anyone should wrap their personal self-worth around the things they enjoy anyhow. Those who want to write and be reasonably successful at it, they will. Those who aren't willing to put in the work required, they won't. The secret is telling which of the two you are and coming to grips with it. Unfortunately, we see lots of people who have neither the interest nor the excitement to really get involved thinking they're going to be successful when, based on those criteria, they almost certainly will not.

 

I knew two writers personally who made a good living by writing Peter Parnall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Parnall who had written or illustratated over 80 books, we were neighbors and close friends for more than 40 years. The other was Bill Caldwell, I did some work for him and he also lived close by and had lots of chats about living in Maine.https://www.maine.gov/msl/maine/writdisplay.shtml?id=94673.

Both were avid story tellers that loved public speaking and were experts at promoting what they wrote. They both spoke often to groups and organizations, worked tons of hours, had tons of talent and in all honesty both men would have been successful with their people skills and work ethic, in just about any line of work.

Peter, who I spent lots of time with, had his whole sales pitch down to a science; he sold you an image of who and what he was so that you wanted to buy his work. A year before he died, I spent a weekend interviewing and going over the story of his life. He had told me many of the stories over the years, but I wanted to get it on tape and on film. I did the interview with the idea that it would be for anyone who wanted to know, what does it take to make a living as a writer. I have hours and hours of tape, not sure if I will ever do anything with it or not, it was pure joy just to spend the weekend with him an relive his life, that is the one true gift you get as a writer is the chance to really learn a story.

 

Well now I'm interested, so you have to write a memoir for us from the tapes