Comments on: writing by the rules http://www.sarahevekelly.com/writing/writing-by-the-rules/ Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:35:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Katie Anderson http://www.sarahevekelly.com/writing/writing-by-the-rules/#comment-1190 Katie Anderson Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:29:20 +0000 http://www.sarahevekelly.com/?p=414#comment-1190 Great post! And well said. I am of the "write what you want" camp. I have friends who desperately try to write to the market and even I feel their pressure to get it done fast fast fast!!!!!! (because the trend might change.) Your writing is beautiful and compelling - and I've only read your blog. You'll get there - and by there, I mean staring at your book at Barnes and Noble :-) Great post! And well said. I am of the “write what you want” camp. I have friends who desperately try to write to the market and even I feel their pressure to get it done fast fast fast!!!!!! (because the trend might change.)

Your writing is beautiful and compelling - and I’ve only read your blog. You’ll get there - and by there, I mean staring at your book at Barnes and Noble :-)

]]> By: sunna http://www.sarahevekelly.com/writing/writing-by-the-rules/#comment-1187 sunna Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:22:44 +0000 http://www.sarahevekelly.com/?p=414#comment-1187 Holy hell, that site is brilliant. Nick, thanks for the link. :) Holy hell, that site is brilliant. Nick, thanks for the link. :)

]]> By: Nick http://www.sarahevekelly.com/writing/writing-by-the-rules/#comment-1184 Nick Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:47:37 +0000 http://www.sarahevekelly.com/?p=414#comment-1184 Excellent post. As helpful as it is to check some of the naïveté at the door and understand how the industry works and what the incentives are (especially all the links: the author-agent, agent-editor, editor-publisher, and publisher-market relationships), anyone who devours fiction constantly must certainly have an unsettling intuition that if people wrote to game the market or play by all these "rules", fiction wouldn't resemble anything like the books that stand out on the shelves, that hold our attention when we devote them our precious time. (And maybe the large part of published fiction doesn't. Simple: "That's not <em>my</em> market and <em>I'm</em> not playing for it.") Sunna: "signposts for newbies" is right. Most of the advice out there consists of quick, conventional fixes for basic compositional missteps. And most of those are better demonstrated at <a href="http://writebadlywell.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">How to Write Badly Well</a>. Excellent post. As helpful as it is to check some of the naïveté at the door and understand how the industry works and what the incentives are (especially all the links: the author-agent, agent-editor, editor-publisher, and publisher-market relationships), anyone who devours fiction constantly must certainly have an unsettling intuition that if people wrote to game the market or play by all these “rules”, fiction wouldn’t resemble anything like the books that stand out on the shelves, that hold our attention when we devote them our precious time. (And maybe the large part of published fiction doesn’t. Simple: “That’s not my market and I’m not playing for it.”)

Sunna: “signposts for newbies” is right. Most of the advice out there consists of quick, conventional fixes for basic compositional missteps. And most of those are better demonstrated at How to Write Badly Well.

]]> By: sunna http://www.sarahevekelly.com/writing/writing-by-the-rules/#comment-1183 sunna Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:43:19 +0000 http://www.sarahevekelly.com/?p=414#comment-1183 Well said, Sarah. I try, sort of, to aim generally for popular when I go shuffling through my list of oooh-wouldn't-this-be-a-fun-book ideas, but the truth is, what I love to write, where my passion mostly perches all gargoyle-like and sullen, is not particularly popular. And I just don't care any more. Of course I want --badly-- to be published. But not at the price of loving what I do. Hard and fast rules can be decent signposts for newbies, IMO, but it's been a long time since I let them dictate the whats and hows for me, because the truth is, I read a lot, I write a lot, and I have just about as much say in the direction of market as any other peon out there-- which is to say, some. /affirmation-type-incoherent-rabmle Well said, Sarah. I try, sort of, to aim generally for popular when I go shuffling through my list of oooh-wouldn’t-this-be-a-fun-book ideas, but the truth is, what I love to write, where my passion mostly perches all gargoyle-like and sullen, is not particularly popular. And I just don’t care any more. Of course I want –badly– to be published. But not at the price of loving what I do.

Hard and fast rules can be decent signposts for newbies, IMO, but it’s been a long time since I let them dictate the whats and hows for me, because the truth is, I read a lot, I write a lot, and I have just about as much say in the direction of market as any other peon out there– which is to say, some.

/affirmation-type-incoherent-rabmle

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