As I’ve noted in past posts to this blog and elsewhere, good writing skills are nice to have, but luck is the real key to becoming successful as a writer. That’s disheartening because luck is, well, fickle. But there are things a serious writer can do to “enhance” luck. One of the best and most successful writers on the scene in recent years is Hugh Howey. Hugh has been innovative and creative in marketing his books and talents, as well as enormously successful in selling them. He frequently shares his insights on what it takes to beat the odds as an aspiring writer. The following is excerpted from his Writing Insights Part One: Becoming A Writer that was published in Amazon Author Insights. Parts 2, 3, and 4 also are published on Amazon Author Insights at: http://amazonauthorinsights.com/post/165774835635/writing-insights-part-one-becoming-a-writer
Many of the challenges and frustrations you’ll encounter along the way are the exact same as those felt by every other writer. The exact same. Writing requires long stretches of uninterrupted concentration. This sort of time has always been difficult to carve out. We have children, pets, and spouses who require our attention. We have day jobs to work around. We have the stress of bills, mortgages, student loans, rent, empty gas tanks, empty stomachs. We berate ourselves for not writing more. We judge ourselves when our works don’t sell. We watch as other writers get ahead, as markets change, as retailers come and go.
Every generation of writer thinks that their challenges are unique, and that every other cohort of writer had it easier in the past or will have it easier in the future. That’s because the past highlights those who succeeded there, and their success seems to have come all at once, without the failures, frustrations, and challenges that all writers feel in the moment. The present for a struggling writer is certainly suffering, but this never stops being true. It’s always been true.
The only thing that truly changes over time is the stories and rationalizations that we tell ourselves when we feel these universal pangs of self-doubt, envy, and exhaustion. We tell ourselves it’s because Barnes and Noble is killing indie bookstores. Or that it’s Amazon destroying B&N. Or that it’s Amazon introducing a new program. Or the Nook not doing enough to compete. Or James Patterson and his stable of co-authors. And so on and so on and so on.
The excuses and the stories we make up vary. The challenges don’t.
The fact is that the writing landscape today is as vibrant and viable as it’s ever been in the history of mankind. Authors have more power and control over their careers than ever before. They have more access to readers, to each other, to foreign markets, to the tools of publication, and to the infinite manufacture of goods at almost zero cost. Ten years ago, it was almost impossible to reach readers. Ten years from now is a complete unknown. Seize the day, my friends.