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Monday 15 October 2012

Writing for fun or profit



Yes, ok I’ve heard the old ‘people who only try writing to make a quick profit will never make it’ truisms many times before, and I’m sure most ‘wanna be’ or beginner writers would agree with this. You have to want to write first, and then want to become good enough at the craft through diligent practice and learning to become publishable. And although everyone’s definition of ‘publishable’ is different, it’s only really the editors/publishers definition that matters.
 
I may be wrong here, but I seem to have noticed a distinct lack of the ‘fun’ part amongst the new wave of ‘beginners’ lately. Now, to set the scene, I would consider myself a beginner writer, and have done so for at least the past ten years. I say I’m a beginner because during this time I’ve only just scuffed the surface of the magical mystical publishable barrier. Although I would consider the substance (telling a cohesive story) and the technicality (the craft aspect) of my writing to have improved during that time I will always still see this as  learning until the increasingly unlikely event of me getting a publishing deal. It’s the last level of fine punctuation and grammar editing that remained my biggest bug-bear, and I can’t afford to personally employ a professional editor. But hey, that’s just me being grumpy again.