Thanks for this illuminating article. I’ve long suspected that working harder than almost everyone else is the key to writing success. Hard to hear, though, for all of us who are prone to procrastinating….
“Well, it really is this: when people ask, they say, ‘How do you make it in show business or whatever?’ and what I always tell them, I’ve said it many years, and nobody ever takes note of it because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear. What they want to hear is: here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script, here’s how you do this, here’s . . . . But I always say: Be so good they can’t ignore you. And I just think that if somebody’s thinking, ‘How can I be really good?” people are going to [pay attention]. It’s much easier doing it that way than going to cocktail parties.”
I recently read an analysis of debut authors, showing that ~80% of them had a prior industry or academic connection. I'm hoping that the advice to 'work harder than everyone else' doesn't give a fig about such a distinction.
It's very hard work, and I don't think a lot of readers (and non-readers!) appreciate it. It's the argument you see from people who want books but don't want to pay for them. "But you enjoy writing! So why should you be paid for it?" An argument that makes me so furious, I could bite through breezeblocks with rage. The time, the effort, the personal sacrifices, the emotional exhaustion..... And editing. Eurghhhh! I look on edits with the same joy I look on dental appointments.
And yet that’s surely the Second Hardest Truth, the Hardest being: ‘and it may still not produce the book you want’ (probably won’t).
Thanks for this illuminating article. I’ve long suspected that working harder than almost everyone else is the key to writing success. Hard to hear, though, for all of us who are prone to procrastinating….
“Well, it really is this: when people ask, they say, ‘How do you make it in show business or whatever?’ and what I always tell them, I’ve said it many years, and nobody ever takes note of it because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear. What they want to hear is: here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script, here’s how you do this, here’s . . . . But I always say: Be so good they can’t ignore you. And I just think that if somebody’s thinking, ‘How can I be really good?” people are going to [pay attention]. It’s much easier doing it that way than going to cocktail parties.”
— Steve Martin
I think “Work harder than everyone else” must be stamped on the other side of the “Be so good they can’t ignore you” coin.
I recently read an analysis of debut authors, showing that ~80% of them had a prior industry or academic connection. I'm hoping that the advice to 'work harder than everyone else' doesn't give a fig about such a distinction.
It's very hard work, and I don't think a lot of readers (and non-readers!) appreciate it. It's the argument you see from people who want books but don't want to pay for them. "But you enjoy writing! So why should you be paid for it?" An argument that makes me so furious, I could bite through breezeblocks with rage. The time, the effort, the personal sacrifices, the emotional exhaustion..... And editing. Eurghhhh! I look on edits with the same joy I look on dental appointments.