Why We Write
Feb. 8th, 2012 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeirdAm 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-09 12:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-09 01:02 am (UTC)It's already been done.