For me, in high school, I was always impresed by the writers (all female, as it turns out) that could write pretty sentences. I always believed I wasn't very good because I don't write flowery--not my style. Those flowery writers would compliment my work and that must have stuck in my head.

Later, when I was working on my masters degree, I took the writing placement test and tested out of having to take the class. The test was to write an essay on a certain theme. I decided to write the essay as a piece of fiction, and it obviously worked. That gave me confidence, and then selling non-fiction reinforced it, and I've worked hard to improve since then.

Seriously though, I think one of the things that made me believe in myself most was finally realizing that the actual published novels, even by my favorite authors aren't really that great. I was working on my first attempt to write a full length novel (the styrofoam planet one, actually), and I was reading OSC's "Unfinished Sonatra" collection, and just as I finished the last story in the collection (which, IIRC, was the Unfinished Sonatra) I realized that I not only hated that story, I pretty much hated the entire book. This was proabably my favorite scifi author, and I had just hated my way through half a donen of his early short stories. And I'm thinking, “I could do better than /that/,” and then it finally hit me: I /could/ do better than that. I really could. And all of a sudden my whole mindset changed, where instead of thinking of published authors as these superhero semigods that I used to, I realized that I could just as easily be a professional writter as any other career choice I might pick.

1. It's my dream. You have to start there, but I hear so many people say, "I'd love to write." or, "Oh, you're a writer! I keep wanting to write x." so let's go on to #2...

2. It's my goal. "The difference between a dream and a goal is a plant." -- Dr. Phil -- I absolutely love that statement. It sums it up soooo beautifully. What differentiates me from those people who say, "Oh, I've been wanting to write." or "I've written some poetry before." is that I'm not just sitting around daydreaming all day...at least, not any more than what is required for the job. I write. Every day. Well, Monday through Friday you'll find me here either writing, critiquing, researching, etc. I have a plan. My plan is to write and write and write. Then my plan is to submit. When my first novel doesn't sell (and I don't entirely expect that it will, though I'm still trying) I'll get my second novel out there I'm 50k words in (about halfway through though I'll probably need to rewrite). When I say I'm a writer I don't mean I want to be a writer, I mean I write.

3. I write every day.

4. I submit short stories and novels and keep submitting them.

5. I research my field. I know what I'm talking about. About two years ago I decided to do this full time after I got married (which happened a few months later). If this was going to be my job, then I was going to mean it. I went to boot camp, read several books on writing, started posting to forums, startied asking for critiques, started taking them seriously instead of personally, began to see patterns and learn what was what. I know a lot about markets for fantasy and science fiction. I can tell you what Analog wants vs. Realms of Fantasy vs. F&SF (even if I can'ts eem to sell there ).

6. I'm a competent writer. I'm no poet and never wanted to be. In fact, I can't stand poetry. But I write good, sometimes even compelling, material. It is grammatically correct, spelled correctly, professional, etc.

But for me, writing is not about whether I can, or whether I like it. It's something I should do, therefore I'll try.

(Probably his most famous line)

The stories in my head never go away, but it helps to orgainize them by writing them down.

It's just always been my thing...

What is success?

I just do it because I like to, a compulsive kind of thing.

I do have some goals, but I don't know if achieving them means I'm successful.

Maybe I'm just having a bad day. Yesterday, I got 4 rejections, and then I listened to a talk by a publicist (for non-fiction) on how to get a 6-figure book advance. Admittedly, most of what she said was for non-fiction . . . but it seems that Madonna has "written" children's books. (They're ghost-written.) Jamie Lee Curtis, ditto. William Shatner has his name on some SF books. The way to impress a publisher is to already be a star. I've been working on the wrong thing! And yet it's what I love.

I don't want to be a star, and I don't want to be a career writer whose books always sell even when they're practically unreadable (naming no names, but I suspect you can think of some). I don't want a lecture circuit. I want to write stories and have people read them, because they're touched by them, not because I'm God or got on Oprah.

One of the most important criteria for me is writing something that lives up to my own standards, something that I read and think "geeze, that's good." Hardly ever happens and I'm not particularly confident that I'll ever be successful by that definition.

I thought this because in grad school, I wrote many very long papers, and almost always got good grades on them. I knew that I do very good research when I have access to good sources, my analytical reasoning skills are very strong, and my grammar skills are above average, even for writers. Turns out that there's more to being a successful writer of fiction than being able to do good research, think through arguments, and write without oodles of grammatical oopsies.

I already feel like I'm a success. And no I'm not trying to be cliche, I love to write and that's what I do. I'm blessed to be able to stay home with my kids and regale them all day with tall tails and flash at Liberty Hall and stick my head in a book until the wee hours of the night (how I arise each day without an eject button is a mystery). I'm really having fun!

Someday I hope to be published, and I see that as something only I have control over. It's like poker (now this is definitely cliche)...you play the odds and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but if you don't play you always lose (I just keep banking on the "sometimes you win" part). Christine is right...just submit, submit, submit, and then submit again.

Mind you, this is a good day. If I'd have written this last week it would have been all about jumping my bike off a cliff or something equally daft.

But I think the real turning point for me was my road trip with my two best friends, Caiti and Pechous, to New York City. We were there during the blackout. So, we sat in the hotel all night, telling each other stories. When I told them about my WIP, Caiti said she'd really REALLY like to read it someday. Pechous agreed. These two are very supportive people, but they don't express it so strongly unless they really mean it. I think it was that validation that made me sure I could write and have my writing enjoyed by others.

I wrote only on rare occasions as a kid. I was more into art. When I was in my early twenties, I began to wrestle with the fact that there was a story in my head and characters trying to come out. I spent a week or so telling myself, "This is stupid. Who am I to try to write a story? You'll never finish the stupid thing." Finally, I gave in and began writing, just to get it out of my system. Funny thing is, it never got "out" of my system. I typed for months, got a really cliche'd crappy draft out for part of a story, then after I had kids I put it in a box (where it still sits on a shelf.) That particular story itself isn't good, but I banged out enough of it that I began to teach myself how to write.

About ten years ago I got back into writing by participating in stories on a local BBS, and eventually gravitated to online Play-By-
Email Role-Playing Games--which meant I was writing again. I got numerous compliments on my writing, which gave me some confidence. And best of all, I remembered what had captivated me in my early twenties about writing... it was exhilarating and fun!! I loved it.

It's only been this past year that I've decided I've written enough material to qualify for a book. I decided to get serious and learn about publishing, improving my skills, and honing my writing. I'm working on rewriting my Appallingly Overlarge Novel, and with the help of my Hatrack Critique group am trying to tighten it into a well-crafted first draft.

Do I have a shot at being published? I was a little uncertain until last winter, when my cousin was coming for regular visits. I had mentioned the story to her, so she asked me to tell her something about it. I did, then each time she came, she asked for an update. Her interest was genuine and she seemed to be captivated by the story in progress. It gave me hope that it wasn't just my own opinion the story was good, that maybe I really DO have a chance.

In high school, my English class would have us write something and then read it aloud to the class. Did this a couple of times, once with a poem, and another time with something that I don't even want to remember. Both times tanked. The teacher still gave me a good grade, but it didn't mean much because none of my classmates had been impressed. They all just sat there with glazed eyes, and I couldn't wait to get to my next class (math; boy is it bad when I want to go to math.)

The next year, we were told to write a three-page story, and I parodied Jack and the Beanstalk. From the moment I stepped up and read, the whole class was in the palm of my hand. I had them laughing and excited, and by the time I finished, when they clapped, they really meant it. The guy I sat next to was so taken with this one line I made that he wrote it down in his notebook so he'd never forget it.

After that, I figured that if I could improve that much over a year, imagine how good I could really be. And I've had several confirmations since then that I am still getting better.

quote:

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Orson Scott Card has commented that writers usually get their inspiration to become authors because 1)they read something written by someone else and think: "I could write better than that!" or 2) they read something written by someone else and think: "This is incredible! I want to be able to write like this!"

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My desire to be a writer actually came about when I was in 8th grade. For my English class, we were required to write two separate pieces that where about whatever we wanted them to be about. I wrote an essay for one of them, but the other I decided to do as a piece of fiction. So I wrote a short story about a boy trying to escape persecution in the Middle East (after having read a book on that topic). After I handed the story in, my teacher was so impressed with it, he read it aloud to all of his English classes and throughout the day, I received many compliments on my story. Many people told me that they thought it would make an excellent book. All of that gave me the confidence that I could write and succeed at it.

Later on, I actually did turn that short story into a novel, but I have since changed the setting to a fantasy setting because it was too difficult for me to accurately describe Middle Eastern culture and customs in the detail it needed to be in for a book.

I remember having to write a paper in the 9th grade and just hating it. Memorizing Shakespeare in 10th didn't help much either. (I have one poem that's been stuck in my head since 10th grade that just won't go away.) I never even considered writing until later on (28 I think I mentioned on another thread). I was a math and science geek in high school.

I have never particularly enjoyed writing, and must say that I still don't.

Every word need to be chosen as the closest fit to whatever gap it needs to fill and then beaten into it. When you're done you have a cool machine that does... something or other.

I stopped thinking I had the most phenomenal ego in the world and starting writing--maybe this was something I [i]could do.

I will tell you what convinced me to try selling my stories.

Money.

That doesn't mean I thought I'd ever get rich off my writing. But the whys and hows are a bit of stretch for me to believe and almost sound like a "it was meant to be" kind of story, even though I was being very practical about writing in general, then more so than now.