Wild World of Writing

The writing world is just wild! With Authors, Publishers, Agents, and Editors, we find ourselves in a world of words, bouncing around like balls in a BINGO machine! It’s a wonderful world mostly, where like minds join together for the same common interest and that is the love of reading and writing.

The definitions of such are below:

AUTHOR --
1. a person who writes a novel, poem, essay, etc.; the composer of a literary work, as distinguished from a compiler, translator, editor, or copyist.
2. the literary production or productions of a writer:
3. the maker of anything; creator; originator:

WRITER --
1. a person engaged in writing books, articles, stories, etc., especially as an occupation or profession; an author or journalist.
2. a person who commits his or her thoughts, ideas, etc., to writing.

PUBLISHER --
1. a person or company whose business is the publishing of books, periodicals, engravings, computer software, etc.
2. the business head of a newspaper organization or publishing house, commonly the owner or the representative of the owner.
 
AGENT --
1. a person or business authorized to act on another's behalf:
2. a person who works for or manages an agency.
 
EDITOR --
1. a person having managerial and sometimes policy-making responsibility for the editorial  part of a publishing firm or of a newspaper, magazine, or other publication.
2. a person who edits  material for publication, films, etc.

Publishers, Editors, and Agents are not necessarily writers/authors. They are in the business because they were either writers in their previous years and found the business exciting enough to stay in the field one way or another, or the love of reading has brought them to this juncture.
 
And not all writers make good editors. I see some well published writers/authors of their own works still in need of an editor who can pick out that typo and make their work appear more professional. Say a writer posts an article at Helium. If they have not edited their work and many typo’s abound, what are the odds of that author ever being taken seriously?
 
Is an agent necessary to get your work into the hands of the publishers? Not necessarily, but they do know who to pitch your work to and whose hands it would best have a likely shot at being published. So as you can see, it is one wild world this writing domain that I’ve gotten myself into. With ups and downs, in's and outs, the Wide World of Writing is a kaleidoscope of adventures and can bring a richly rewarding creative world to life for you whichever you are in the industry, writer/author, agent, publisher or editor.
 
As the Cat Stevens song says, “Oh baby baby it’s a wild world!” ...it goes onto saying, “But if you wanna leave, take good care, hope you make a lot of nice friends out there, but just remember there’s a lot of bad and BEWARE!”
 
The same can be said for the writing world.

Professionalism

It only takes one person to change your life – you.
Ruth Casey

***

There comes a point in ones writing career when you realize the importance of acting like a professional. If you’re just writing to make friends, to be popular, to just plain old have fun, then you are in the wrong business. Maybe you should think of joining a circus, or a carnival, or perhaps a day care where the children don’t want you to be professional, they want a like-minded person who is funny and will play all the time. Remember, they WANT Bozo the Clown for a friend!

When you join the writing sites, it is pretty important that you come off as a professional. You never know if a prospective editor, agent, or publisher is sitting right next to you, observing you before she/he approaches you. If they see that you can’t even act professional, why would they want to take something as serious as getting you published and helping you with it, into their professional business?

Allow me to ask this, when you submit your work, are you going to put cute little hearts on your work, a few woohoos; are you going to sign it with (hugs)? I’m just here to tell you, that your work will go right in the trash! Why? Because not only did you not adhere to the guidelines, it was because you were very unprofessional in the submission of your work!

As teachers of writing, we have to set proper examples for the new writer to follow. When we act in a childish manner, the newcomer finds this as an example to follow and they go on acting like a child, then the whole class begins acting like a child, then the classroom erupts in crazy behavior and becomes a circus-like atmosphere. Which has me running for the exit. But it has the newcomer embracing the silliness, and then the entire school is acting crazy and unprofessional and makes me not want to be a part of the writing world!

I will not take seriously anything someone is trying to teach me if they continuously shout out “WOOHOO” with a smiley or the words, woohoo. An occasional smiley might make them feel welcome, but the annoying over use makes you appear not very knowledgeable, or better yet, very unprofessional in the field. You’re waging a popularity contest, an ego boost, and in hindsight, you’ve created a series of fellow performers. You were just suppose to teach lessons.

The RINGMASTER - YOU, the teacher! The one who is guiding and leading has trained:
CLOWNS - these are the folk that follow your insanity and lead others too!
TIGHTROPE WALKERS - these are the ones that stand high above you looking down, wondering what they got themselves into.
TRAPEZE ARTISTS - these are the ones who swing all around the place, trying to fit in, and showing off their silliness, as you taught them!
JUGGLERS - Who juggle many sites, doing the same thing. Running around being crazy.

Now don’t get me wrong, the newcomer is frightened as it is upon entering a new course, and when they see someone acting like a goof, they then think, “Hey, this is an okay place! I feel at home.” Then they go onto acting a little loose too, where otherwise they might have remained professional. I say this: Know your boundaries! Set your limits! Know that the writing community is full of professional people, just waiting to help you along your path. Even the ‘stiff shirts’ can be a little zany sometimes, but we know what our job is and that is to guide you in the RIGHT direction, not skirt you off to the circus!

Making Money

Are you making money from your writing? And why is that?

In today’s world of fast paced cutthroats, writers need diligence to get them to make money from their writing. A good writer makes little money from all of their hard work whereas a great writer makes an income. Now an excellent writer is, well, you know, sitting around his pool drinking Mai Tai’s basking in the glory of all his/her published works.

No, I don’t really believe that is what the excellent writers are doing. I believe they are writing. They continue to write their hearts out no matter how much money they have garnered from a previous published book. It’s a tried and true method for them to keep on writing.

Now before you can start writing for money, you are going to need material that is publishable. And it must be good enough for somebody to WANT to pay for it. Ask yourself a question. "Would a publisher be interested in spending money on MY work?"

A publisher is taking a risk in spending thousands of dollars on you, the unknown, so make your work worth a large amount of money. It has to have some value before you can expect someone else to want to publish your work.

It will help if you have a story that a reader can’t take his/her hands off of and easily put it down. A story that the reader can't put down is one that could inspire a publisher to see the potential in book sales. The same is true for a script. Sometimes the writer must pitch the idea to get the publisher, agent or producer excited about the potential of their work.

The Internet is full of markets where you can sell your work. Whether it is a short story to a magazine or an agent for your novel, or a publisher that you can query. Writers are not only writers they are small-time archeologist! They need to dig, dig, dig to find the precious gem that will give their work life and an abundant glory of profit.

And whatever you do fellow writer, DON’T GIVE UP! Did Indiana Jones? NO! Stephen King? NEVER! Now get to writing and selling, marketing and publishing! You can do it!