It's All About The Journey - Isn't It?

Call me ambitious, but ever since I embarked on this writing lark I've aimed to earn a living from it. In my own mind I wouldn't have succeeded as a writer if I wasn't a) published, and b) making a career out of it.

Which was pretty stupid, really. I mean, hello. How many writers can say those two things? Even published authors (go you good things!) can't often say they're able to live on their earnings from writing.

So I guess it's just as well I get a kick out of writing, otherwise I'd be spending a fortune in counselling by now.

Anyway, a few of us writer-ly types got together for a chat and slating - I mean, critique - session, and we were discussing what it means to be "successful" as a writer. Or an artist. Or dancer or musician or otherwise creative being, because writers aren't the only ones who devote thousands of hours to something that may earn them next to nothing.

And the more we talked about it, the more we realised you could apply the argument to any human endeavour. Before we knew it our chat had become a philosophical discussion. ie - working towards a goal is actually what life is about. It's about trying, and trying some more, and failing and getting up and trying again. It's about our journey into ourselves.

The end goal is actually fairly incidental in the process.

Take the guy who enjoys a game of golf. He plays every weekend, and gradually brings his handicap down. But he doesn't turn into Tiger Woods. He doesn't even get down to single figures. Yet still he keeps chasing that silly little ball down the fairways. Why? All he'll get out of his golf is the satisfaction of having done his best (and maybe winning a couple of meat raffles back at the clubrooms).

It's all about the journey.

So next time I'm whinging about my lack of success as a writer - slap me. Remind me to enjoy the journey, because the destination may be a whole different place from what I expected.

What about you? Tell me, what's your journey? What made you choose that train? And are you remembering to enjoy it?

Digital or Paper: What's Your Preference?

There's a storm on the horizon of the publishing world - though some would say it's a lot closer than that. What's it about? The impact of digital publishing on the traditionally paper-dominated publishing industry.

Writers, agents and publishers are all angsting about it, tweeting about it and crystal ball gazing about it. As indeed they might, because it's their livelihoods at stake. Will e-publishing be the death knell for paper books? Or is it just a fad, a bit player in a mammoth market?

One thing's certain: nobody knows.

But everyone's got an opinion. And it seems to me (if I didn't already know it) I must be nuts to want a career in writing right now. Not only do I have to overcome my own inferiority complex, the futility of the slushpile, the multiple (read: hundreds of) rejections, the need to be a marketing expert - now I'm not even sure what 'publishing' means any more.

I always hoped I'd be published one day, that I'd hold my book, see my name on the spine. E-publishing didn't even cross my mind. It doesn't really count as 'published', right?

Wrong. E-published equals published. But - and here's the thing - e-publishing makes it easy for people to self-publish. Anyone can do it. I could upload my manuscript to Kindle and start selling it tomorrow if I wanted. Do I want to? Um... I'm not sure. There are lots of factors to consider - some I'm already aware of, but plenty of others I'm not, I bet. So, for now, I'm going to play a fence-sitting game.

Which probably means, as with most decisions I make, it's the wrong decision and I should've leapt onto the self-publishing train before it gathered speed and left me behind.

Seriously, folks, I was not meant to be rich. I'm not complaining - well, okay, maybe I'm whinging a little - it's just the way it is. Whatever I decide, you should do the opposite and, trust me, you'll be loaded in no time!

Anyway, enough about me and my bank overdraft. What I want to know is this: do you read books in digital format? Leave a comment and tell me yes or no, because I'm keen to see how many of you would currently choose to read e-pubbed books.

Conviction And Courage: Essential Writer-ly Traits

It's not easy being a writer on the road to publication. First, you have to work out how to craft a novel. Then you have to do it, and well enough that a publishing house will take it on alongside their established authors. You'll probably also have to find an agent who loves your work enough to represent you. Which means you have to do some serious research into agents and editors and the querying/submitting processes. And you have to do all this in your own time.
The quandary: writing a debut novel takes hundreds - no, thousands - of hours. You really need to give up your day job to focus on it. But you can't afford to give up your day job because until you're published you don't get paid. Sadly, even writers need to eat.

Worse, as you journey this rocky road to publication you constantly encounter failure and more rejections. I explore this further in  "Conviction and Courage - Essential Writer-ly Traits", over on my For Writers page.