Misleading Powers in the Industry

There are people in the industry who want to help, seem to want to help, and some who want to take advantage. These last, and possibly even the ones you aren’t sure of, end up giving writers added anxiety and worry.

There was once an article I had read from the Horror Writers Association from Edo van Belkom: http://horror.org/writetips/writetips-vanbelkom.htm

This is a great piece from his book about writing, and it may come across as discouraging, but only to the ones not serious about writing horror fiction--or any fiction for that matter... Or let's even go further and say for anything in the art and entertaining industry.

He keeps it real and it still comes across as encouraging.

    

     There are others, though, that appear to want to scare writers into thinking they can't do it, that they need their expertise, or service. I'm not going to go deep into who, but they are out there. And if something seems too good to be true, it is.

    

     Then there are the ones who scare writers by saying, "There's so much work! Writing is only part of the job. The other half is marketing and this and that." Okay, fine. Yes, you need an understanding, but without even directly giving my opinion, let's think about this logically. Right? If you are doing something else that is not writing, then when do you find the time to do the writing? The creativity will be diminished, if not flat out drained. Now you are looking at yourself as a product and not at least mostly looking at this as art.

     I'm not putting anyone down, I'm just giving examples, but I've seen writers who promote and promote and podcast up the wazoo and give their book out for free and fall short of the quality that would have been there if they'd had spent more time on their work and a little less on the other part. Now, if you're alone, then there's nothing you can do. You're in this by yourself, but you have to remember, the product you are selling is your writing and if it's not finished, or rushed, then once they get that in their hands you're going to have a hard time getting another piece into their hands.

I really feel that the more a writer goes into the "business" of this, the more they lose either time from the thing that is actually going to make the money, the talent, and just may lose a bit of the talent itself, too.

It's said that we use our right side of the brain for creativity and the left side for logical things. Mix those and you could have a problem. Isn't that what an agent is for? But then again I've read not to even bother with an agent, even by some of the people who I'm talking about in this post.

And don't get me wrong. I know not every writer has an agent. And I know that the writer must promote when possible and push their work. But the work should be done, first. Time should be put aside, lots of it, for the "product."

In conclusion, for now, I think the most important thing to do is read everything, even the negative things, keep your finger on the pulse of the industry, but just be careful to what you absorb. I like to soak in all the info and let my subconscious analyze it and then make a choice with all that melded info.

What do you think? Leave a comment, or post what you do to cope in all this madness.

WCM