Orenthal Hawkins is an online friend of mine who works on the tech side of a large publishing house in New York. He's a self-proclaimed nerd and pop culture fiend (his screen name is Popfiend). His Live Journal, O-Positive, is pretty much a celebration of the fact that his job requires him to be online 10 hours a day -- it's a collection of links to news articles, You-Tube, other blogs, and web comics interspersed with bad puns, scenes from his life, birthday wishes to just about everyone, love poems to his wife, and essays on topics varied and sundry. It's a real time sink to visit and gets more hits a day than my journal gets in a year. I sometimes link to his entries. Zinnia followed one of my links and suggested I post it here.
Popfiend on Publishing, 5 things you should know.
That entry led to a follow-up:
Some advice from a former coworker of mine for those looking to get published.
Which in turn led to an invitation for writers to chime in -- a very interesting series of comments and insights:
Open forum on the Craft of Writing hosted by Popfiend
Go have a visit. If you feel like commenting, let him know I sent you.
6 comments:
Thanks for the links, I shall go and have a look.
Most interesting. This affirms what I've thought: It's a business first, a craft second. At least according to the publishers and distributors.
For me the realization that writing stories for others to read is a craft, not an art, was a fundamental satori. All of my sales date from that moment of realization.
Thanks for sharing this.
Great links - thanks, Kevin. (And I agree 100% about craft not art. Although I think there can be art in the craft, if that makes any sense. But art without craft gets you nowhere.)
You sent me there via a link before and I ended up spending ages looking around, reading his profile, etc etc. Really interesting stuff. Will trot over there again and take a look around.
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