All writers are unique. Yet, best-selling authors deviate from what most authors do.
Can you see where you need to grow in the following?
1. They are intent on seeing the world.
Zombies are analogies to modern living.Most of humanity hurries through the day in a fog,
looking only for what they need in order to survive or
to get ahead of the next guy.
Hemingway wrote that prolific and successful artists are students of the world around them.
They pay attention because stories worth capturing are happening all the time right next to them.
They just see it where others don’t.
Eyes that look are common, eyes that see are rare.
2. They know how to beat Inertia.
Inertia is that insidious force that works to stop creativity, progress, and beauty.You can’t see it, touch it, or smell it, but every artist is intimately acquainted with Inertia.
Inertia's father is DOUBT.
Inertia murmurs,
“You’re tired, you can do it tomorrow.
You’re really not that good. You could spend ten years slaving away
and chances are it’ll all be for nothing.”
Inertia is the enemy. Success comes from writing the next word, the next,
and the next until a page, a chapter, finally a whole book is written.
3. They know how to take a punch and keep on coming.
In CON AIR, there is a scene where Nicholas Cage' s friend who has been shot murmurs,"There ain't no God."
Nicholas Cage gets up slowly, and when asked what he is going to do, he says low, "I'm gonna show him there is a God."
A convict shoots him, but he keeps on coming, putting the con down.
That is what best selling authors do.
Creating art is hard, often lonely work. Most people don’t have the stomach for it.
They think they do, but they don’t.
There are probably more half-written novels, uncompleted paintings, and abandoned businesses in the world
than there are completed and successful ones.
The pros live with the fact that this whole deal called art is brutal
and, if they want to be an artist, they have to endure the pain
and keep on coming.
They have an ability to keep their head down and trudge forward when everyone else has given up and gone home.
4. To them there is no fail.
To best selling authors there is no fail --only needful lessons to be learned and the right publisher to be found.
Artists with passion do not hear “fail”.
They don’t understand it. Of course their idea is possible. Everything is possible. They believe it.
Whether or not it turns out to be true doesn’t really matter.
Genius is seeing the inevitable before everyone else, possibilities before they're even a consideration.
Sometimes it may be delusion, ego, or attitude.
But most of the time it’s simply seeing the world for what it could be
and expecting nothing less than passion and eventual success.
Edison, Einstein, the Wright Brothers ... they refused to admit defeat
and so light, dreams, and flight
were born.
***
Rudy has always been told he was too small to play college football, but his dreams were too big to accept defeat:
Hey, Roland!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I love your blog design. Second, wow, spectacular post! I love all the points you make, but #3 and #4 are my faves! And I can happily say, I can claim every # on here, so thanks for making me feel like I'm doing at least 4 things right. I can't wait to read more of your posts. :)
There are many factors, and any one of them could trip us up. A good motivator is to consider the alternatives.
ReplyDeleteHi, Celeste:
ReplyDeleteLeonora Roy is the great artist who brought my street gypsy, Victor Standish, and his ghoul friend, Alice Wentworth, to life. She deserves all the credit.
Your own post of creating a riveting hook for your novel was dead on.
I look forward to your visits. :-)
D.G.:
I was merely trying to pinpoint four aspects of best selling authors we can apply to us. You're right, of course. There is an ocean of factors we must keep in mind.
I always enjoy your vists, Roland
So I am not sure if you have ever covered this angle of being an author... so I thought I might invoke an idea to you...
ReplyDeleteI started to write and publish books via ebooks and print-on-demand, epic fail for me... I started to join book/writers clubs, thinking that I might help out my sales... I was wrong those people wanted to do the same. No one was really interested in getting my works, they wanted to have me cover their works. The groups were a good idea, the problem is those people were never going to be my audience... where do we find that group. I ask you and Eisenstein? As I thought you might get a question out of this, but it's me whining...
Sometimes artists are too naive to realize they can't as well!
ReplyDeleteJeremy:
ReplyDeleteIt is hard. THREE SPIRIT KNIGHT has garnered all of THREE sales! Ouch!
Yet, Sandra, my best friend and critic who cuts me NO slack, says THREE SPIRIT KNIGHT is moving, funny, and filled with moments that haunted her long after she read them.
Emily Dickinson's poems were just as stunning and lovely when she was mocked for them as when, decades after her death, they were praised.
You have nailed our problem: finding our audience and MORE IMPORTANTLY, them finding us. How do we do that?
You have given me material for a new post. Thanks. Always in your corner, your friend, Roland
Alex:
Usually the 10,000 rejections we receive in our first year of writing slaps the naive right out of us! :-)
Are you mad at me? You did get that Samuel L. Jackson autograph I re-sent you, didn't you? All the other winners received their autographs and some of them were half the world away!
I wish you well on the A-Z Challenge and on your CASSA-STORM.