Hatrack River Writers Workshop: An object lesson in determination!

This is topic An object lesson in determination! in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Brad R Torgersen (Member # 8211) on :

Not sure how many of you have seen this:

http://www.jlake.com/2008/11/30/process-a-writerly-meme/

This, my fellow aspirants, is an object lesson in determination.

Lake is, by all measures, an emerging professional. One of the "new voices" all of us want to be some day.

The time, effort, and patience it's taken for Lake to reach the point where he is at now, is boggling.

Food for thought.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

I don't recognize the name---though I should if he won the Campbell award. (Probably read the awards list and promptly forgot all about it.)

One of these days I really should add up all the rejections I've received and see what kind of numbers rack up. Must be in the thousands by now, especially if you include the couple of years I sent some poetry around.

Other than he's actually sold stuff, some of it lines up pretty much with what I've done. I learned recently a writer whose works I've long admired didn't sell anything until he was about my age---enhartening, to say the least. (Disenheartening is that he couldn't really make a good living at it, was at one point reduced to hunting and eating pigeons, and eventually committed suicide. I hope to avoid that fate.)

Posted by benmackay (Member # 8148) on :

Yes definitely want to avoid the suicide part. I have read things recently that identify how rare it is that a writer can make a full time living on writing alone. That is slightly disheartening, but I hope (eventually) to at least only have to do some part time consulting to supplement the writing income.

I do know an author who has written some books and it is definitely a part-time thing for her (though she has so many other admirable things going on I don't think she could make it full time). Although her target audience is quite narrow, I'm not surprised it hasn't turned into a full time gig.

Definitely going to be persistent!
Ben