Forum Moderators: mack
What makes a successful writer? Good ideas for sure. The ability to craft a story and develop compelling characters is important too. But there is something else that may matter more. Let’s look at three writers, one of the great “serious” writers and two of the most successful “popular” writers of the twentieth century. First, John Updike. Many people were surprised when John Updike came out with yet another novel in 2006. When interviewed in Newsweek, Updike said that from the very beginning when he decided to become a professional writer, he put himself on a schedule of roughly a book a year. In a recent poll of writers and editors, Updike had an astounding three books on a list of the top ten books of the last half of the twentieth century. Perhaps as interesting, is that he has written perhaps fifty books that did not make the list. Updike has “made it” because he is a brilliant writer. Just putting down millions of words as Updike has would not make you or I a great writer and that’s not my point. The point is rather that even someone with all of Updike’s talents but without his work ethic, would still be an unpublished author, swilling coffee in Starbucks pretending to be an intellectual. Even Updike, had he merely written a dozen books in his life, would perhaps not have found his way onto the list.
Now what about writers who are perhaps not recognized as literary geniuses, but who have sold a lot of copies? As a recovered classics snob, I must say for starters that I think Stephen King and John Grisham are excellent writers. I only classify them as “non-literary” because an unfortunate bias of our time tends to make that differentiation. I think of two quotes that I heard from Stephen King and John Grisham during radio interviews, I believe on Terry Gross’ excellent Fresh Air program. These are certainly not exact quotes, because I didn’t write them down at the time, but they are close enough. The first is from King. He said something to the effect of “You know you’ve made it as an author when someone comes up to you and says ‘Hey, I’ve got this great idea for a novel. I’ll tell you what it is and all you have to do is write it down and we’ll split the income 50/50.’ The thing is, I have 10 good ideas for a novel every day. It’s precisely the writing it down that’s the hard part.” Meanwhile, John Grisham, who was rejected by a dozen publishers before selling his first book, was telling about how as a young lawyer who wanted another way to make a living, he showed up at his office every morning at 5:00am and wrote until 9:00am when he started work. Terry Gross asked him how he works now that he doesn’t have to balance his writing with another job and he said roughly “Now that I can write any time I want, I get up every morning and get to my office at 5:00am and write until 9:00am. Some habits die hard.”
So what’s the point of all this? Simple. These individuals are brilliant writers, yes, but they didn’t have a secret method they read in an ebook or learned at a writer’s workshop. They had interesting ideas for books, but not some amazing new type of literature. They were not Rousseau or Montaigne or Joyce. But they sat themselves down and filled pages and pages of paper.
One last thing. I’ve published some things that have gotten positive responses. One reader said “I wish I could write like you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, it’s so easy for you. The words seem to just come out.” Then I told him that I had written over a dozen drafts of the piece in question and to finish it, I had sequestered myself for six solid weeks. I was so stressed that my resting pulse rose by 20 beats over the final writing. The day I sent in the manuscript, my pulse rate fell 15 beats and stayed down. What he saw as talent was in fact effort.
In other words, there is no secret. There is knowledge in bits and pieces here and there, but there isn’t a single key to the kingdom. The key is persistence. It's like that when it comes to educating ourselves about making money on the web or simply creating great sites for a noble cause. When it seems discouraging, I have to keep reminding myself of Updike, King, Grisham and my own dozen drafts. Work smarter, sure, but work!
If you look at folks around here, it's clear that there are a lot of secrets and when you put them all together and mix in some hard work, there is good money on the internet, but I'm bothered by these people who try to suggest that if you buy their "system" and work 2 hours per day you'll soon be rich. I don't see any evidence that that works out for very many people and especially not those who go into it with that expectation.
