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Write Only For Yourself…
Something I Teach All The Time… The great artist Bob Eggleton put up a post on Facebook tonight. A quote from Andre Malraux the French novelist (among other things he did.). Malraux said, “An artist discovers his genius the day he dares not to please.” I am constantly talking with young writers who are doing a number of things that I try to convince them are not critical. And often deadly. 1… Writing to market. (What is supposedly hot in sales, what you have already done, what others tell you to write.) 2… Write for beta readers or first readers or workshops. Just pretty silly when you stop and think…
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A Lesson…
But Few Will Listen… The advice: Never let anyone tell you to not write something because it won’t sell. Never decide to not write something because it has been done to death before. Why I say no one will listen is because so many indie writers are wrapped up in writing to market, writing what they think will sell, or what some unknown person on the internet thinks will sell. And every indie writer thinks they have to be original with ideas and plotting when nothing is every original in either one. Tonight I read a story by an author. A really old idea, one I had seen a hundred…
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Dr. Jerry Pournelle’s Advice
Advice from Another Pro… Before he died in 2017, Dr. Jerry Pournelle recorded at the Writers of the Future conference advice to help newer writers. He wasn’t talking to fans, but to writers. It doesn’t matter what any of you thought of Jerry personally, his books were New York Times bestsellers and he was in the industry writing for over forty years or more. And besides helping writers at Writers of the Future, he often took in single student to mentor. Some major writers were his students at one time or another. And I know a lot of you don’t believe me at times about some of the advice I…