The only thing I would add, especially for a young writer (ie 14 years old) but also applicable to any writer starting be out and struggling with rejection is: become your own sharpest editor.
In other words, make sure rejection isn't based on the fact you have yet to master some basic aspect of the craft.
Are your rejections based on the fact you might be weak in character development? Plot structure, etc?
However, once you know you have a handle on all aspects of the craft, then by all means, just keep writing.
Of course, my advice doesn't fit on a nice pithy poster like King's....
I must admit I didn't think much of Stephen when I first laid eyes on him. He may have been important in publishing but in Hollywood he was just a little turd with a Boston accent. Looked like a stiff breeze could blow him over while he was riding a bike. That was my first impression of the man. Then he asked me to read a script he had just finished. Long? If you laid out the pages it would amount to five hundred yards of shit-smelling foulness you can't even imagine. Or maybe you just don't want to. Five hundred yards. That's five football fields. Just shy of half a mile. Then a voice in my head told me to do the movie. Why? Let me tell you Ken, when you've got ME in your head as a continuous VO 24/7/365 you're pretty much going to go fucking insane and agree to anything. Imagine, I VO myself while I'm driving, shaving, showering, screwing, playing Nelson Mandela, cooking and screwing. But it turned out okay, like most things in life do. The movie was edited down to a tight 3 1/2 hours and given a title nobody understood except Roger Eber. That was good enough for me as it led to opportunities I never could have imagined. People always ask what my favorite VO is, well it's this one, "THIS.....is Hollywood and Levine!" Fuck you James Earl Jones!
Never stop writing, and understand that the process is not just the time you spend typing. If you're out on the street, see something, and begin to mentally form that experience into a paragraph, you're writing. That switch should always be in the "on" position.
Once you have something on paper, find someone to read it. Workshops are essential as you learn how to communicate to a silent audience. If you're lucky enough to go further, those sessions will have taught you how to deal with editors and collaborators when it comes to dissecting and discussing your work.
Professionally, write for anyone. Maybe you ultimately want to be a screenwriter or mystery novelist, but spread yourself as far as you can while learning the practical side of producing material on demand. You will inevitably get many rejections as you aim for your personal goals, but filling someone else's needs makes them the applicant and you the provider. In high school, I used to wander the hallways for a half-hour after classes ended, and every member of the faculty knew they could always grab me on the spot to knock off an event announcement or letter to parents quickly and entertainingly. I wrote supermarket handouts as a teenager, went on to legal briefs, newspaper fillers, and even a restaurant menu. These may not seem like much, but they weren't difficult and I learned how to adjust to any client's needs. The main rule of freelance writing is to please your customers first and take what satisfaction you can for yourself as a bonus.
When Dashiell Hammett left the detective business, he took a job with Samuel's Jewelers at Market and Powell. Every day the Jewelry store would run a full-page advertisement in the city papers with a picture of a bracelet or whatever and a few paragraphs of prose meant to inspire you to buy it. Hammett wrote the paragraphs for those ads every day, and at night he'd walk home and spend the evening thrashing out the short stories that eventually became his claim to fame. It didn't hurt that the Pinkerton offices were in the same building as Samuel's, and once in a while they'd give him some extra assignment as a stringer. You have to be flexible until something sticks.
Writers should also be readers. Read authors you admire and those who write in your genre. Through thoughtful reading, you can pick up improvement of your craft by osmosis by watching how these other authors handle it.
I've written a variety of different types of things, from journalism to press releases, to video descriptions for a website I once worked for.
But perhaps my greatest challenge was when I was working as a contractor for a large federal agency.
One of my key responsibities was answering correspondence my department received.
The correspondence could come from anyone from a senator or governor, to Joe Blow Taxpayer.
It sounds simple enough, but not only would you have to write a letter that accurately answered the query, it had to comport to all the bureaucratic requirements.
And the department head would review these before they went out and this particular department head was a stickler, demanding each letter catch his style and voice exactly.
At the time, he was being politically turfed out of influence, which gave him time being pissed off and stewing in his office over my draft correspondence and whether I was getting his voice and style perfectly.
Martin Short and Steve Martin recently had a variety special on Netflix. I found some of the material dated, some punchlines were fairly obvious and some skits were a bit underdeveloped. Yet I loved almost every minute of it. It was pure joy to see two seasoned performers just doing the things on stage they were always good at.
Whom would you like to see in an old-fashioned variety special with a modern twist?
Janet Ybarra -- another Stephen King quote that goes with what you've said (and one I have hanging in my 8th grade Language Arts classroom) is "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that."
14 comments :
Great advice!
The only thing I would add, especially for a young writer (ie 14 years old) but also applicable to any writer starting be out and struggling with rejection is: become your own sharpest editor.
In other words, make sure rejection isn't based on the fact you have yet to master some basic aspect of the craft.
Are your rejections based on the fact you might be weak in character development? Plot structure, etc?
However, once you know you have a handle on all aspects of the craft, then by all means, just keep writing.
Of course, my advice doesn't fit on a nice pithy poster like King's....
Morgan Freeman said...
I must admit I didn't think much of Stephen when I first laid eyes on him. He may have been important in publishing but in Hollywood he was just a little turd with a Boston accent. Looked like a stiff breeze could blow him over while he was riding a bike. That was my first impression of the man. Then he asked me to read a script he had just finished. Long? If you laid out the pages it would amount to five hundred yards of shit-smelling foulness you can't even imagine. Or maybe you just don't want to. Five hundred yards. That's five football fields. Just shy of half a mile. Then a voice in my head told me to do the movie. Why? Let me tell you Ken, when you've got ME in your head as a continuous VO 24/7/365 you're pretty much going to go fucking insane and agree to anything. Imagine, I VO myself while I'm driving, shaving, showering, screwing, playing Nelson Mandela, cooking and screwing. But it turned out okay, like most things in life do. The movie was edited down to a tight 3 1/2 hours and given a title nobody understood except Roger Eber. That was good enough for me as it led to opportunities I never could have imagined. People always ask what my favorite VO is, well it's this one, "THIS.....is Hollywood and Levine!" Fuck you James Earl Jones!
Off topic for the day (but definitely in the comedy category): President Dump was caught boarding Air Force One dragging toilet paper on his shoe.
The ultimate commentary on the man and his presidency...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/politics/2018/10/05/trump-toilet-paper-video-president-boards-air-force-one-with-what-appears-be-toilet-paper-stuck-shoe/&freshcontent=1
As I like to say, "When life gives you lemons you'll always discover a papercut you didn't know you had."
M.B.
Never stop writing, and understand that the process is not just the time you spend typing. If you're out on the street, see something, and begin to mentally form that experience into a paragraph, you're writing. That switch should always be in the "on" position.
Once you have something on paper, find someone to read it. Workshops are essential as you learn how to communicate to a silent audience. If you're lucky enough to go further, those sessions will have taught you how to deal with editors and collaborators when it comes to dissecting and discussing your work.
Professionally, write for anyone. Maybe you ultimately want to be a screenwriter or mystery novelist, but spread yourself as far as you can while learning the practical side of producing material on demand. You will inevitably get many rejections as you aim for your personal goals, but filling someone else's needs makes them the applicant and you the provider. In high school, I used to wander the hallways for a half-hour after classes ended, and every member of the faculty knew they could always grab me on the spot to knock off an event announcement or letter to parents quickly and entertainingly. I wrote supermarket handouts as a teenager, went on to legal briefs, newspaper fillers, and even a restaurant menu. These may not seem like much, but they weren't difficult and I learned how to adjust to any client's needs. The main rule of freelance writing is to please your customers first and take what satisfaction you can for yourself as a bonus.
When Dashiell Hammett left the detective business, he took a job with Samuel's Jewelers at Market and Powell. Every day the Jewelry store would run a full-page advertisement in the city papers with a picture of a bracelet or whatever and a few paragraphs of prose meant to inspire you to buy it. Hammett wrote the paragraphs for those ads every day, and at night he'd walk home and spend the evening thrashing out the short stories that eventually became his claim to fame. It didn't hurt that the Pinkerton offices were in the same building as Samuel's, and once in a while they'd give him some extra assignment as a stringer. You have to be flexible until something sticks.
I bet you would have gotten the direction of the opening quotation mark right. :-)
One of the things I admired most about the late Isaac Asimov is the fact that he published literally hundreds of books during his lifetime.
And not just the sci-fi he is most known for. He wrote science fact, history and more.
Talk about writing and writing and writing.
If anyone is interested, here is an Asimov bibliography. It shows the breadth and depths of the multitude of subjects he wrote on:
http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/asimov_catalogue.html
Writers should also be readers. Read authors you admire and those who write in your genre. Through thoughtful reading, you can pick up improvement of your craft by osmosis by watching how these other authors handle it.
I've written a variety of different types of things, from journalism to press releases, to video descriptions for a website I once worked for.
But perhaps my greatest challenge was when I was working as a contractor for a large federal agency.
One of my key responsibities was answering correspondence my department received.
The correspondence could come from anyone from a senator or governor, to Joe Blow Taxpayer.
It sounds simple enough, but not only would you have to write a letter that accurately answered the query, it had to comport to all the bureaucratic requirements.
And the department head would review these before they went out and this particular department head was a stickler, demanding each letter catch his style and voice exactly.
At the time, he was being politically turfed out of influence, which gave him time being pissed off and stewing in his office over my draft correspondence and whether I was getting his voice and style perfectly.
It was a very demanding job.
FRIDAY QUESTION
Martin Short and Steve Martin recently had a variety special on Netflix. I found some of the material dated, some punchlines were fairly obvious and some skits were a bit underdeveloped. Yet I loved almost every minute of it. It was pure joy to see two seasoned performers just doing the things on stage they were always good at.
Whom would you like to see in an old-fashioned variety special with a modern twist?
Janet Ybarra -- another Stephen King quote that goes with what you've said (and one I have hanging in my 8th grade Language Arts classroom) is "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that."
Inspirational. As a writer, in addition to perseverance you need a thick skin and a good wall stud to hold up the spike.
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