Dissed Writers Fight Back

QUESTION: I am so tired of being sneered at when I tell people I write. How should I handle this?

Artists have always been met with idiocy and blank looks. It's our lot. We ARE different, after all, but different is good! Without the artists and other creative people, the world would be a bleak place.

For some reason, especially in America, writers and other people with brains are treated with contempt. It's the dumb jocks who are the norm. Painting yourself blue in midwinter and rooting for your football team in an open stadium is normal, but you are weird if you write or read books, or go to sf conventions, or belong to the SCA. Personally, I beg to differ.

I've discovered that my enthusiasm can win over those blank stares. The trick is to believe in what you are doing and who you are. If you give those people with sneers or blank stares the power to define who you are, then you've lost, and you are nothing.

Instead, believe in yourself and what you are doing. Writing is one of the hardest jobs in the world, and if you succeed only a little, be that success a finished short story or a few chapters of a novel, then you are a success. Glow with it, and no one can belittle you.

ASK ME QUESTIONS! Email me at marilynnbyerly@aol.com if you'd like me to answer your question about writing, publishing, or the writing life.

WHY YOU NEED AN AGENT Here's an interesting article by an agent on why you need an agent.

http://editorialass.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-you-should-never-submit-unagented.html

I don't totally agree with him, category romance is one exception to his comments that I can think of immediately, but he does have many valid points.

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