Stephen Palmer on the realities of being an author

[Brian G Turner]

Stephen Palmer begins a series of articles about the realities of being an author:
Author Life, Day 1

A seriously fascinating read filled with ugly and beautiful truths. And some great quotes, such as:

Being an author is different to being a writer. Writers put words together in an attempt to make a book. Authors put books together in an attempt to make a career.

 

[Stuart Suffel]

Will take a peek, right now.


Eta. Read it, look fwd to the next one. I thought the bit about 'either commercial or art' interesting.

A fews days ago, I felt an immense relief, as I'd come to the conclusion that I would write only 'the great work'
(a work which does not consider anything but the work itself. Yes, effective expression is important, but it's writing outside of commercial concern)

Today, I threw out a feeler for a 'commercial' YA fantasy novel i wrote a while back, and that I'm considering revising. It's... fine, it's a good read - but, it's not, 'the great work'.

(Maybe I'll understand myself down the rd someday.

 

[Stuart Suffel]

I wonder how many great authors did 'commercial' work.
I wonder if there really is a distinction.
Is it possible to separate oneself from ones work, and say, 'this you can have, my commercial soul, this I can give, bit not my true soul'

It's something I've been wrestling with since i first put fingers to keyboard.

 

[Steve Harrison]

That's a very interesting read.

I've always considered myself a writer rather than an author, as the term 'author' sounds to me a little pretentious. I do use it when I am being pretentious, but only then.

Writing certainly throws up a large number of questions, probably because the activity encompasses everyone from a beginner writer to a bestselling superstar author, so deciding where you sit and where you want to be in that vast void can assume huge importance. And an honest appraisal of your own writing abilities can cause a great deal of anguish if and when it clashes with your ambitions.

It took me a lot of years to realise that I write simply because I can't not write, so whether I float to the top or sink to the bottom is only of secondary importance.

 

[tinkerdan]

Pretty good article, however
As Dean Wesley Smith says
— A Writer is a person who writes.

— An Author is a person who has written.
The New World of Publishing: Writer vs. Author
Of course I would add to the author as also someone who has published.

I found this to ring true since publishing my book people around me have begun calling me an author.
However unlike him when they ask about my book I know they mean the one I am writing presently, which they are waiting for patiently(almost).

Anyway @Stephen Palmer
It almost sound like::
To be or not...
for a second there.

Non-the-less still a thoughtful article.
I appreciate the comfort zone thought--I write things for work--because they know I'm an author; however that stuff is easy stuff that doesn't stretch me in any direction; so being an author is stepping out of the comfort zone and writing something original without fully realizing how everyone might enjoy or accept it and then putting it out there for the wolves to pick at it.

 

[Toby Frost]

The best quote I can think of to sum up the authoring business comes from the great MC Abdominal:

"I do what I love and I love what I do
But it you think this is easy, you must be new."

 

[Stephen Palmer]

It helps that I'm 55 and have seen 22 years of the mostly nonsensical world of publishing...

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Interesting. And I think he makes a valid point about deciding what your goals are. But I don't think the distinction between writing for art's sake and writing to sell is anywhere near as clear cut as he suggests. Shakespear - not that I personally knew the man - didn't write literary fiction so he could be great or true to himself. He wrote commercial plays so he could eat. He just happened to be extremely good at it.

My own view is that if you spend twenty years writing, editing, polishing and rewriting a masterpiece that no one will read - you've failed. A book needs to have an audience of more than just the author. The audience is part of the book.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Toby Frost]

I agree, but I think the days when you could be pretty good and pretty productive and pretty sure that you'd make a reasonable living from writing as a result are gone. Now, you can be near-illiterate and get a book deal from having enough Twitter followers, or fail to sell at all because you're not quite writing what's in vogue, or just from plain bad luck.

So I would say that it's not so much bad art or immoral to write in order to get rich - but it is a bad idea, tactically speaking. The idea that success and quality are incompatible is a false one (not that anyone's really suggesting it here), I think, and encourages writers to aim low, but this is not a good line of work for reliable cash flow.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Some interesting comments above!
Day 2 - In Character
Day 3 - World-building
Day 4 - Language Issues
Day 5 - Art?