Authors Anonymous discussion

When is it time for a writer to see the cold, harsh light of day and realize that they are wasting their time writing? As the saying goes, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same result." I've been writing and marketing for four years now with very little to show for it financially. Art for art's sake is cool and I dig that jive but let's get real: If you don't have a fan base, what's the point? I can spend my time and money improving my fishing skills instead and get fresh air to boot. And please don't give me that old song and dance that "I'm not writing for the market". If I wanted to do that I would have moved to Madison Avenue.

Conrad, sorry to hear about your current love affair gone south. Yes, she was fun in the beginning, but now the newness has all but worn off and greener pastures seem to be beckoning, I'm sure.

At age 15 I began to fall in love with writing, when at first I viewed her as a friend, the girl next door. Poetry at first kept us together. As things got more serious between us, I turned to writing short stories and have not put down that pen since. We did so much together; we got to know each other well. We shared one another's faults as well as our strengths.

Now some 50 years later I'm still in love with that childhood sweetheart. I could never leave her know, we know too many of each other's secrets. Whenever I needed her, she was always there for me. Whenever wouldn't give me the time of day, she was always there at my side. I could never abandon this true love of mine.

It seems I knew her long before we ever crossed paths. She was probably hiding in my subconscious mind waiting to appear to me. Maybe she was stalking me from the beginning, or before I knew her, but as soon as I laid eyes on her... I guess I was easy prey.

Every year for me marks yet another anniversary that we have been together. We've had some difficult times in the past, and yes, throwing in the towel seemed an easier option early on. But now being this older married couple feels like a comfortable pair of slippers, so get me my pipe and newspaper, I'm not going anywhere.

http://www.amazon.com/Don-Ford/e/B006...

Where eagles fly,
Don (Greywolf) Ford

Don wrote: "Conrad, sorry to hear about your current love affair gone south. Yes, she was fun in the beginning, but now the newness has all but worn off and greener pastures seem to be beckoning, I'm sure.

A..."
Well, I've actually been writing and teaching writing at the university level for nearly 35 years but at least I was getting paid handsomely for it. Love is grand but it don't pay the bills, buddy.

Conrad,
I'm retired and I VISIT retirement homes to share my stories and poems and they pay well to listen to me babble on. Cheers, Don

Plus it keeps me off the streets and out of trouble! :-} Don

Don wrote: "Conrad,
I'm retired and I VISIT retirement homes to share my stories and poems and they pay well to listen to me babble on. Cheers, Don

Plus it keeps me off the streets and out of trouble! :-} Don"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQfzwF...

Conrad,

There are lots of us out there. To date my sales have not covered the cost of the copyright fees required to register my books. Like you, I was ready to quit. In fact I did quit, but I came back. I canceled my accounts on several websites and left the LinkedIn groups I had joined. I have ten books available. I have been writing in earnest since I had a "temporary interruption" of employment in 1996.

So, my advice to you is not to give up, but rather change the direction where you focus your energy. The energy is why you write and tossing it away makes no sense. I recommend that you join the legions of authors like myself who contribute reviews to sites like this one. There are other sites in desperate need of reviewers. I am leery of sites that pay reviewers and that charge the writers. There are many sites where the only payment is in the form of an electronic copy of the work to be reviewed. One of these is IndePENdents. They do not even ask for a full review. All they want is someone with a clue to read the book and report that it is free of grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors. I always submit a sentence or two about the book which is more than they require, but I feel guilty not giving the author at least that much.

Therefore, given the dearth of reviewers in a burgeoning market, you would be doing readers a tremendous service by writing reviews of the books you read. Let me indulge a bias here. I do not think that another review of Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, or Fifty Shades of Grey buys anyone anything. I feel that reviewing books with fewer than a dozen reviews is important. As authors we are better able to judge the technical skill of another author than the typical reader. Before anyone jumps on me for that statement, Goodreads members are not typical readers. Goodreads members care more than typical readers as evidenced by their membership and participation in this group. The issue is that not enough people are posting reviews of the off-the-beaten-path books they read.

So, while you are not writing, read and review. The entire community of readers will be better off as a result of your efforts.

Perhaps a place to start is the collection of books you have read. Review them and post reviews.

You will feel better and that is a step in the right direction.

Have you thought it might be an addiction? On the other hand, maybe the idea of persisting is that "eventually success will turn up".

In science (my profession) what I found was that when I entered a new field it took about three years to "catch up with the field" and about another four years to make an impact, so anything under seven years effort meant you never achieved anything. Of course, seven years did not mean success; it merely meant you could start the road to being successful. Give up at your peril!

Oh, to be young and full lipped again!