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Posted by Colin Harvey Jul 11, 2008 |
I had lunch with my friends Bruce and Holly last week before they returned to Oregon after two years in the UK. I'll miss them more than I should, considering we've only been able to get together twice, and they're merely a trans-Atlantic flight and attendant security checks away.
On the journey home I began thinking about Bruce the writer, rather than Bruce my friend
Bruce the Heretic:
Who makes his living by writing three wonderfully crafted short-short stories a month, and sending them to his seven hundred subscribers, who each pay ten dollars a year.
He also teaches creative writing, but he couldn't do that were he not 'walking the walk.' His numerous awards validate those classes, and he has the experience of writing gaming tie-ins to show that he can write novels -- but simply chooses not to at this time.
Increasingly a writer's career advice seems to consist solely of:
1. Write a novel
2. Find an agent
3. Sell it to a big publisher
4. Repeat 1 and 3
with these optional extras
5. Write short-stories
6. Sell to the highest paying market
7. If rejected, submit to the next highest-payer
8. If you run out of pro-markets, put it away until the next market appears.
But one size doesn't fit all, and Bruce outlines why in Word Work, which I'll blog about separately.
I'm not advocating that the novice necessarily this example, but nor do theyr have to blindly follow a career path advocated by agents and others with vested interests, who are becoming increasingly aggressive in their preaching of The Only True Path To Happiness As A Writer.