You Are a Writer Read Online Free Page A

place that is deep and true, you will find your audience.
    But you won’t do it alone.
    You will need others’ help. You will need a community. And that community begins with one person who truly believes in the work.
    That person is you.
    So what do you say? Time to start writing? Thought so.
     

The Truth About Writing
    Writing is hard — real hard. It’s work. Somehow, you never talk about that in your college composition class.
    Nobody wants to tell you the truth, because if you knew how hard it was, you’d never start in the first place. You’d quit before you began.
    Let’s begin there — with the truth — shall we?
    What Nobody Ever Tells You About Writing
     
It’s harder than you think.
It’s not enough to be good. You have to be great.
Nobody cares about you. People care about themselves.
It’s more about who you know than what you know.
You’d better love it. (Otherwise, quit now.)
    So what do you do — now that you’ve been acquainted with the real world? Do you give up or persevere?
    Nobody ever tells you this. That writing takes more hours and energy than you’d ever be able to plan for. That no one cares about you as the writer until you’ve actually written something. That what you write isn’t as important as getting your work in front of the right people. That, above all, if you don’t love it, you’re kind of screwed.
    At least, nobody ever told me those things. Maybe they did, and I just wasn’t listening.
    Now that we’ve debunked some common beliefs about writing, what does it take to become a writer? Well, there are two camps.
    The First Camp
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
—ERNEST HEMINGWAY
    Writing is hell. This is one camp of thinking.
    The reasoning goes like this: This is serious work, so if you want to do it right, it will have to cost you everything. Including your life. No two ways about it.
    We read about men like Hemingway the drunk or Dickinson the recluse and romanticize their lives. We think, This is just the way it goes. And we set ourselves up for lives of dysfunction.
    It’s a cheery thought, isn’t it? All it takes to succeed as a writer is the ability to deal with a considerable amount of blood loss? Thanks a lot, Ernie. No wonder so many creatives are given to suicide and substance abuse.
    I have a friend who says this about writing: “Don’t be the sacrifice; make it.” I like that.
    There are plenty of writers who choose the Hemingway route and suffer through their life’s work. They subject themselves to the violence of their art, instead of conquering it. They ruin marriages and type masterpieces while completely wasted. They wallow.
    If you’re a wimp like me, though, you may not be too keen on suffering. In which case, rest assured. There is another way. You don’t have to suffer; you can work , instead.
    The Second Camp
“Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.”
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
    Talent is not enough to succeed. We know this. We see it every day.
    Hollywood is not just full of the world’s best actors, but those who also made the right connections and paid their dues.
    Music Row has welcomed not only the world’s most remarkable musicians, but also those who knew the right people.
    Of course, talent is important. But it is also a given. In order to succeed as a writer, you need something more, something vibrant.
    In other words, there must be a life behind the writing.
    Stephen King said in his memoir On Writing that for years he labored under the assumption that life was a support system for art. Only years later did he learn it was, in fact, the other way around.
    If you are going to succeed as a writer, you are going to have to learn to be smart. To have thick skin. To be more than talented. You are going to have to be a marketer, an entrepreneur, a talented salesperson.
    Because this is a business .
    If your art is going to have the impact you want