According to the Guardian everyone wants to be a writer:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2153330,00.html
But hasn't it always been that way? I remember, as a child, that loads of my friends (and me) wanted to be a writer (it was up there in the top ten dream jobs that also included ballerina, nurse, actress and air stewardess). Maybe it's the success of JK Rowling that has made 'being a writer' even more popular but then isn't it about being 'rich' rather than being a writer? Everyone wants to be famous and rich these days - and people don't seem to care how they get there.
Is it something that we, as writers who write because they love it/can't stop doing it/need to do it need to worry about?
5 comments:
I was just about to write something like 'talent will always win out in the end' but we only have to look at the likes of Paris et al, to know thats not true. She's probably 'written' a book too.
It's only that popular because people see it as (a) easy and (b) a way of making shed loads of money; neither of which reflects the reality of writing.
I don't see it as a threat to my aspirations as a writer. The biggest obstacles I have encountered over the years are witless agents and publishers who have become obsessed with the size of their profit margins.
I had no idea, before I sat down and started to write a novel, quite how hard it would be and now that I'm editing - it's still hard. I think a lot of people who 'want to be writers' would laugh if you told them it's hard to write a novel - and maybe it's not if you don't mind churning out any old piece of cr*p - but when you're a perfectionist it's bloody hard!
Someone once said that most people who say they want to write really mean they want to have written something. Preferably a best-selling novel made into a blockbuster movie. No one actually wants to write. Some are compelled to do so, but mere want is not part of the condition.
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