{"id":1192,"date":"2012-12-11T09:19:33","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T17:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/?p=1192"},"modified":"2016-10-14T16:59:20","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T23:59:20","slug":"ramblings-on-the-lowly-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2012\/writing\/ramblings-on-the-lowly-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramblings on The Lowly Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Painting by Francisco de Goya<\/p><\/div>\n

As I navigate the waters of pitching, writing, editing, revising, and marketing, I wonder about this profession of writing.\u00a0 As a writer, I am\u00a0 expected to work for hours, days, months, years developing my craft, and honing that story, all at my own cost of time and energy. Since I’m compelled to write, it’s not an unpleasant life, rather on the contrary, an enjoyable one. I do, however, expect some financial reward at the end of the road. So, it is of some surprise that I find, here in the 21st century, that the writer is still regarded as a lowly professional by many in the publishing industry. How else to explain the free giveaways by Amazon, the great discounting of books, and the recent money grabbing deal by Simon & Schuster as described in David Gaughran’s post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When I first became enamored of the business of writing, I read the greats, like Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, Austen, Dickens and F. Scott Fitzgerald<\/a>. I was surprised to find that they all suffered for their art. In debt, Fitzgerald was lured to Hollywood in search of bigger bucks. Once there, he joined the jerks with Underwoods<\/a>, which is how one movie producer viewed writers. I find this view shocking as there is no film without a script and yet the screenwriter is still often treated as a lowly writer at the bottom of the Hollywood pole.<\/p>\n

Another brilliant writer, Leonard Cohen<\/a>, toiled away at his poetry night and day for ten years. He couldn’t make a living until accidentally at one poetry reading, he put his words to song. And though he became successful, he, too, had a manager who took financial advantage of him, leaving him with little to live by.<\/p>\n

I’ve worked in many different professions and have been paid decently for all. Good writers should be exalted. I mean,\u00a0 Where Would We Be Without Books?<\/a> I know I write For The Love of Books<\/a>. I read them to be entertained, stimulated, and to grow as a human being.<\/p>\n

Although the market has opened up with the advent of self-publishing, it’s become harder for readers to discern which books are good. My husband recently took advantage of Amazon’s\u00a0 free book promotion, and downloaded 37 books. So far, after reading the first few pages of many of them, he’s eliminated more than half, which he says are just junk.I suspect that many of these “junk” books are ones that were self-published, ones that weren’t edited well and therefore, would’ve been better off staying in someone’s desk drawer.<\/p>\n

I’m actually feeling sympathetic to those in the publishing industry as the rules of the game are changing fast. Writing has become a circus, where there are too many performers under the big top, each one scrambling for that agent, that book deal, or deciding to go out on their own through the self-publishing quagmire.<\/p>\n

We need good writers. Writers have shaped our destinies. (example, Fiction and the Replublican Party<\/a>) Writing has informed us about other cultures. (example A Young Woman’s Remarkable Journey To Find Herself<\/a> ). I hope that when the dust settles in the publishing universe, it’ll be easier for the good writer to be praised and compensated for his art and his ability to make us richer in ways that are impossible to measure.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I navigate the waters of pitching, writing, editing, revising, and marketing, I wonder about this profession of writing.\u00a0 As a writer, I am\u00a0 expected to work for hours, days,… <\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[248,78,435,224,436,434,43,5],"class_list":["post-1192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-books","tag-diana-stevan","tag-f-scott-fitzgerald","tag-hemingway","tag-leonard-cohen","tag-lowly-writer","tag-self-publishing","tag-writing-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LuVB-je","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1593,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2014\/writing\/jumping-into-the-fray-of-self-publishing\/","url_meta":{"origin":1192,"position":0},"title":"Jumping into the Fray of Self-Publishing","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"5 \u041a\u0432\u0456\u0442\u043d\u044f, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"It's spring! What better time to jump into the fray of self-publishing. It's a time to blossom, so I'm going for it. Yes, I\u2019ve decided to self-publish my book, A Cry From The Deep, a romantic mystery. I resisted at first, because it\u2019s a hell of a lot of work\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Writing"","block_context":{"text":"Writing","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Magnolia Blossom by Diana Stevan","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_0295-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":338,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/to-market-to-market\/","url_meta":{"origin":1192,"position":1},"title":"To market, to market","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"20 \u041a\u0432\u0456\u0442\u043d\u044f, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"My latest Writer's Digest magazine steered me to Agent Jenny Bent\\'s blog where I found the post she'd written on the state of the writers' marketplace. She shared her views on publishing via the traditional route or self-publishing.\u00a0 The notion of doing it yourself appears to be the beginning of\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Writing"","block_context":{"text":"Writing","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/P1070770-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3133,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2017\/writing\/a-writer-takes-stock-in-february\/","url_meta":{"origin":1192,"position":2},"title":"A Writer Takes Stock In February","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"23 \u041b\u044e\u0442\u043e\u0433\u043e, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"As a writer, I've enjoyed February so far, even though the early weeks brought some disappointment. It was a rough winter by Pacific Coast standards. We normally get little snow, but this year the big snow dumps did some damage. We were lucky though to get away with just a\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Writing"","block_context":{"text":"Writing","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/crocus.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/crocus.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/crocus.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/crocus.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/crocus.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":527,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/uncategorized\/reading-writing-and-webinars\/","url_meta":{"origin":1192,"position":3},"title":"Reading, Writing and Webinars","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"19 \u041b\u0438\u043f\u043d\u044f, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Much as I loved reading Stieg Larsson's trilogy, which I posted about previously, I've been delighted to dig into something completely different -\u00a0 No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod , a wizard with prose. I was particularly struck by the following passage, in which the protagonist talks about his brothers.\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Writing"","block_context":{"text":"Writing","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/www.randomhouse.com_.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":987,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2012\/uncategorized\/steps-to-publishing-success-or-what-i-learned-from-author-catherine-knutsson\/","url_meta":{"origin":1192,"position":4},"title":"Steps To Publishing Success or What I Learned from Author, Catherine Knutsson","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"8 \u0427\u0435\u0440\u0432\u043d\u044f, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Since completing my novel, I\u2019ve been busy learning the steps to publishing success. Step 1. I know the importance of story first. A good story, that is. One with a memorable protagonist with clear goals, seemingly insurmountable obstacles, a worthy opponent and a plot that keeps you turning the page\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Writing"","block_context":{"text":"Writing","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Catherine-Knutsson-237x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1313,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2013\/writing\/unsung-writers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1192,"position":5},"title":"Unsung Writers","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"8 \u0411\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0437\u043d\u044f, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that I\u2019ve immersed myself in all manner of writerly pursuits, I\u2019m discovering wonderful writers who have no fame. They\u2019re a mixture of talents\u2014some who\u2019ve been at the game for decades, others who are just starting. And yet, they all have something to say and they say it well.\u00a0 Their\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Writing"","block_context":{"text":"Writing","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Random House","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Random-House-288x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}