howeird: (How Elephant)
howard stateman ([personal profile] howeird) wrote2012-02-08 03:39 pm
Entry tags:

Why We Write

Am reading John Scalzi's book on being a writer. One of the things he suggested was to build up a following at one's journal. I have no idea how to do that. Well, I have some ideas, but am wary of implementing them. One idea was to start allowing anonymous comments, which I have just done.

How did I discover Scalzi? Someone at BASFA said John had taped bacon to his cat, and there was a photo on John's blog. Months later, someone here or on FB linked to a book John had written, and was selling online. I figured at the very least it would be creative, so I went to Amazon and bought a paperback copy.

It was a very good book, well written, a couple of notches above creative, so I bought the next two in the series.

His book starts by suggesting a good plan if one wants to be a writer is to get a job writing. He walked into the Fresno Bee and got himself a job writing reviews. And the rest is history, and a lot of writing.

So where did I go wrong? I worked on my university daily newspaper for four years, got jobs on three different newspapers after that, and have yet to have a single book published.

Maybe I need to actually write a book.

[identity profile] zyzyly.livejournal.com 2012-02-09 12:06 am (UTC)(link)
Do you have a cat?