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Everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them

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Re: Everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them

#21

Post by ben_w »

jeffwass wrote: post #13

The article title is actually “No, you probably don’t have a book in you”. But the intended meaning of the article is more like “no, you probably don’t have a bestselling book in you.” Disclaimer - I’ve written a kids sci-fi novel in the past year. Something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile now, and finally got around to actually putting down the words on the page to make it happen. Now it’s one thing to say “I wro…

> I’ve been stuck in edit mode for months now, I’ve been finding editing much harder than writing. A common feeling. One writer told me that writing is like a party, editing is cleaning up the next day. Some of my published friends and colleagues tell me it takes a few drafts of editing before it’s even good enough to send to an agent or editor.

It’s a relief to read this. I’ve written about 135k words an only managed to edit about 15k so far.

Re: Everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them

#22

Post by rossdavidh »

meesterdude wrote: post #4

But what if everyone does?

Let's say we all write one book in our lives, and live for one hundred years. Further, let's say we read ten books per year throughout our lives. Out of every thousand people, every year, ten thousand books will get read, and ten will get written, which means each book will be read by about a thousand people. Which is not a problem, unless you thought you were going to make a living at it.

Re: Everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them

#23

Post by throwaway2016a »

dalbasal wrote: post #18
throwaway2016a wrote: post #15

I suppose this is the literary equivalent of a software developer writing an article "No, you probably can't program computers"

I can't tell if you're asking for more or less curmudgeonry.

Neither. I was actually trying to make a joke to relate this to a typical HN article. I suppose it didn't come out right.

Re: Everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them

#24

Post by joe_the_user »

dalbasal wrote: post #17

The tldr is that writing books is hard and most attempts fail.. especially if made by amateurs haphazardly and without practice, instruction or plans that involve learning to do something before being good at it. It finishes with a satisfying lesson in curmudgeon economics. ... Anyway... it's interesting that so many people want to write a book. They may be naive, but they do know it's hard. That's why they haven't d…

"...it's interesting that so many people want to write a book"

Indeed,

The article's main conclusion, that not everyone can write a best selling novel or biography, is nearly truism in that there are a few bestsellers per months and millions of people in this country (or any country).

I think it the interest of many average people in being best selling writers, along with interest in making and staring in TV shows, comes from the way that all these forms tend to expose the unique, inner, human characteristics of their protagonists. The urge to have this experienced by an audience is strong. And moreover, it's reasonably plausible that just about everyone actually does have inner qualities, that, if cast in the right light, can be extraordinarily beautiful. "All" that is needed is to artfully allow a jump from exterior appearance to inner experience (a very difficult process but one which when done right, seems easy).

The problem is that such portrayal is hard and making that portrayal accessible is also hard and the competition for doing these things separates the few best sellers from the many literary attempts.

Re: Everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them

#25

Post by jeffwass »

ben_w wrote: post #21
jeffwass wrote: post #13

The article title is actually “No, you probably don’t have a book in you”. But the intended meaning of the article is more like “no, you probably don’t have a bestselling book in you.” Disclaimer - I’ve written a kids sci-fi novel in the past year. Something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile now, and finally got around to actually putting down the words on the page to make it happen. Now it’s one thing to say “I wro…

> I’ve been stuck in edit mode for months now, I’ve been finding editing much harder than writing. A common feeling. One writer told me that writing is like a party, editing is cleaning up the next day. Some of my published friends and colleagues tell me it takes a few drafts of editing before it’s even good enough to send to an agent or editor. It’s a relief to read this. I’ve written about 135k words an only manage…

Nice, congrats on finishing your draft!

Yeah, I’m finding it very difficult to decide what to keep, what to rip out entirely, what to rewrite.

I blew way past my 75k word target to about 98k words now, and still feel like there’s a bunch more I need to add.

FYI, I’ve found Hugh Howey’s four-part Writing Insights columns on his blog from last year very useful, helped me get thru my draft.

But I’m finding it hard to take his preferred approach to editing of rewriting scenes from scratch instead of altering or spot-editing them. I took a stab at rewriting one of my earlier chapters, now that I know what happens later on, but don’t feel the new version was substantially improved to warrant all the effort.

I think the hardest part for me is killing my darlings, and ripping out the big chunks that I feel are essential.

But I know I need to slog through and get to some point where I can stop picking at it and send out to some alpha readers, then consider actual editors.

I’m still not sure yet if I’ll self-publish or go the traditional route.

Good luck!

Re: Everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them

#26

Post by [deleted] »

bartread wrote: post #12
syndacks wrote: post #6

>I put it like this: I have been running since I was about a year old. Almost 40 years! But I cannot for the life of me run a marathon. I am not physically capable of it, even though I can run a few miles in a row. Yes, you are. You just tell yourself that you are not. And yes, you can write a book. Whether it gets published or not is another story. I don't understand why someone whose job it is to find the next best…

Agreed. I could run a marathon if I put in the effort. The reason I "can't" is truthfully that I can't be arsed . If you want to run a marathon what you're saying is that you're happy for training for that marathon to take over your life for, probably, about a year, and I'm not motivated to do that. With that being said Eddie Izzard, with little training, ran 43 marathons in 51 days. He didn't break any records or wi…

[deleted]

Re: Everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them

#27

Post by paulpauper »

syndacks wrote: post #6

>I put it like this: I have been running since I was about a year old. Almost 40 years! But I cannot for the life of me run a marathon. I am not physically capable of it, even though I can run a few miles in a row. Yes, you are. You just tell yourself that you are not. And yes, you can write a book. Whether it gets published or not is another story. I don't understand why someone whose job it is to find the next best…

the reason why some ppl cannot run well is due to lactic acid buildup and VO2 max level. This means some people will cramp up and get exhausted no matter how hard they train or even if they lose weight. Similarly, with regard to writing, some people are simply not smart enough. If you didn't get a near-perfect score on the verbal part of the SAT, maybe fiction writing is not for you (but non-fiction is always a possibly).

Re: Everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them

#28

Post by paulpauper »

jeffwass wrote: post #13

The article title is actually “No, you probably don’t have a book in you”. But the intended meaning of the article is more like “no, you probably don’t have a bestselling book in you.” Disclaimer - I’ve written a kids sci-fi novel in the past year. Something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile now, and finally got around to actually putting down the words on the page to make it happen. Now it’s one thing to say “I wro…

I’d want them to encourage more people to write that story they’ve been thinking about on the train. Can you imagine if JK Rowling heard this and just thought, “she’s right, my story probably sucks, better to just focus on my day job.”

The fact ppl keep using her as an example of persistence paying off, if evidence of how rare it is.It's good to have realistic expectations.

Re: Everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them

#29

Post by ska »

paulpauper wrote: post #27
syndacks wrote: post #6

>I put it like this: I have been running since I was about a year old. Almost 40 years! But I cannot for the life of me run a marathon. I am not physically capable of it, even though I can run a few miles in a row. Yes, you are. You just tell yourself that you are not. And yes, you can write a book. Whether it gets published or not is another story. I don't understand why someone whose job it is to find the next best…

the reason why some ppl cannot run well is due to lactic acid buildup and VO2 max level. This means some people will cramp up and get exhausted no matter how hard they train or even if they lose weight. Similarly, with regard to writing, some people are simply not smart enough. If you didn't get a near-perfect score on the verbal part of the SAT, maybe fiction writing is not for you (but non-fiction is always a possi…

The overwhelming majority of people are capable of running a marathon distance, even if at a slow pace. Not perhaps today, but by working up to it in a very achievable way.

Similarly, the overwhelming majority can produce a book length manuscript, even if it isn't particularly remarkable. Again, they may need to work up to it.

In this, near-perfect verbal SAT is pretty much irrelevant.

Re: Everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them

#30

Post by bmer »

CPLX wrote: post #11

It's actually possible almost everyone, or at least a great many people, have a good book in them. The hard part I would think is getting it out of them. It takes work and practice. I've been a professional writer for much of my life, in the sense that for periods of time I've actually been able to eat and pay NYC rent by virtue of people paying me to write things. But I don't know if I have a book in me. Because eve…

> But I don't know if I have a book in me. Because every time I try to write things that could possibly turn into a book I read them and they don't sound very good. I know what I'd have to do to change that, namely write a lot every day for a few years until it clicked. But I don't.

Could you expand on what you mean by this?

problem: you write down something, but it doesn't sound very good

solution: write a lot every day for a few years until it clicked

How is the problem solved by the solution you presented?

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