Pub Rants

What Established Authors Have To Say

 13 Comments |  Share This:    

STATUS: As much as I enjoyed Worldcon (the SFWA and TOR party were quite fun on Friday), I must say I’m just relieved to be sitting here alone in my office just working away.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE by Michael Bublé

On Saturday, I attended a panel entitled “Writing 101: Authors Take Questions from the Audience.”

Now this may be an odd panel for an agent to attend (being that I’m not an author) but I do think it’s valuable to hear what established authors have to say to aspiring writers. At the very least, it’s going to be a healthy reminder to me of what struggling writers face out there in the trenches.

Besides, I was just interested in hearing what war stories Harry Turtledove, Kate Elliott (I’m a big fan) and Kay Kenyon had to share.

It was a good panel and I’m glad to have attended. I think the best pearls of wisdom that I gleamed from their talk are these two:

1. All writers have felt like they’ve been kicked to the curb at some point in their career (be it trying to land an agent, accessing an editor at a publishing house, or sifting through the myriad of rejections). You are not alone and the best you can do is to keep writing because that’s what writers do. All established authors have at least one manuscript that will never see the light of day. Many have several.

2. Wherever you are now in your writing is not where you will always be. These established authors said that they couldn’t reread their first published novels because ack, they are so much better now; they can hardly believe that such dreck actually was published (my take: even established authors are hard on themselves!). You will learn and grow as a writer and your rejections today might simply be a memory tomorrow.

Good advice I think.


13 Responses

  1. Mommy C said:

    Great advice, and very welcome (as I burn the midnight oil). Us writers truly appreciate your time and effort. Too bad you don’t represent my genre.

  2. Arovell said:

    Remembering that published authors have all felt kicked to the curb helps us brace ourselves for the moment when we do, so we’ll be ready to persist! Thanks for posting this!

  3. kk said:

    just found your blog – love it!

    i’m starting to peek through old posts for advice in hopes of getting my ass published!

  4. April said:

    Wherever you are now in your writing is not where you will always be. These established authors said that they couldn’t reread their first published novels because ack, they are so much better now; they can hardly believe that such dreck actually was published (my take: even established authors are hard on themselves!). You will learn and grow as a writer and your rejections today might simply be a memory tomorrow.

    This is true to me all ready, and I don’t have anything published. My first novel…ick. I can’t even look at it. I catch glimpses of it and shudder and think, “I can’t believe I WROTE that!”

    Thanks for the advice! Sometimes it’s hard to remember that even the greates authors were once struggling.

  5. jeanoram said:

    I agree with number two. I know I am a WAY better writer now than I was even six months ago. What I thought was stellar then makes me want to yak when I read it now! My question is, is there ever a point when you feel like you are ‘good’?

    Jean

  6. DOT said:

    Excellent advice, if somewhat disencouraging for a wannabe. However, persistence is all and a few grazes can be Band-Aided.

  7. ORION said:

    This is so true! Each time I heard this I was heartened the same way new writers are heartened when I talk about my 70+ rejections before publication.
    Perseverance is the key as they say.