How Much?

[driphoney]

JACK

Editors and publishers dont know good writing from their asses. All they know is what their competition bought and what's a best seller. So you need an agent who knows quality goods.

I own every how-to-write book there is, and I plan to give all of them away except for maybe 3. Theyre useless. What works is dissecting 6 or so books you fucking love.

Which three?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Which three?

STYLE: Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams

A WRITER'S COACH by Jack Hart

WRITING TOOLS by Roy Peter Clark

 

[Loring2]

Nice choices

STYLE: Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams

A WRITER'S COACH by Jack Hart

WRITING TOOLS by Roy Peter Clark

You've made some excellant choices James. I carry two of them with me in my travels. I don't have Hart's book.
However I think you made an even more astute choice, you threw the rest away.
As in all learning making the choice about what it is you want to do with what you write. Tthere are many contradictions in text books about writing. I've had the rule for many years now and it's one we all know: Keep it simple stupid.

That last clause applies to me especially and I translate for myself. It becomes "Keep it simple Loring because you can really be stupid at times".

 

[Loring2]

In a word NO

Loring,

Is it really that easy to get published?

What I'm doing here, is actually some sort of 'skills building'; Write shit, edit, or ask a VE to look at it, perhaps throw it up on SDC for comments, modify, or not, throw it up on .lit. The whole Idea - learn by doing. learn from other's comments, learn from reader's comments (yea, right!). learn by learning (sounds redundant huh? some things are 'viral' in that new info sometimes brings other notions with it)

But the goal is to practice to make perfect. But hey, I'm starting late in the game.

I suppose publishers aren't gonna knock down my doors and ask me to write them a story. So, at some point, I'll have to figure out how to 'show off my wares', so to speak... but the how of it eludes me...


Jacks

No it isn't easy to get published, it's very difficult and Jimmies remarks about editors and publishers not knowing good writing from bad is right on.

I've been told by a few editors while they were under the influence of a bit of Glengarry that they aren't expected to be knowledgible about such things.

The process pretty much goes like this. You write an article or a book and the ms goes to a reader who is not an editor. She or he is a reader who evaluates a number of things but mostly it's a matter of 1, Does she like what you wrote
2. Does it fit the publishers plans, image etc

There is much, much more to go through. Only a good agent can really solve the problems.

Oh I forgot. A good agent is as rare and hard to find as the publisher himself

Just become the best you can be by writing and learning how to critique yourself. Story editors who know anything cost real money.

This is still a wonderful world ... no matter what; Consider the alternative