Now before you all shout 'Humbug' in a Johnsonian fashion I will put before this court the proposal that writing is like politics. We are only in it for the ego and the vanity.
Granted writers will never be paid as much as politicians but we have the same motivational factors in our make-up. We want to be seen and heard and we want our name up there in lights. They say that writing is showbiz for introverts.
Your writing and its furtherance and success can be controlled by yourself to a large extent. You can go the conventional publishing house route, submit your manuscript, receive a little advance, work with editors and Stanley's your father. Nice cover, nice blurb, nice price bish bash bosh but unless thousands upon thousands walk into Waterstones or go clickety click on Amazon then you are never going to make as much money as the politicians but you will make more than the Indy Writer & Self Publisher who goes out there with nowt more than self belief.
Many of us keyboard warriors want to get the work out there but how much time do we ascribe to the reader for they are our bread and butter? Do we care what they think? Yes we certainly do. Many a writer has had to invest in new underwear after reading Amazon Reviews of their work. Think Trip Advisor but with more malice.
To be as successful as the politicos that we wish to emulate we have to do what they do and go out and press the flesh. Instead of kissing babies we have to kiss the arse of publishers and literary agents with a glass of shiraz in one hand and a mouldy vol au vent in the other. It's a good thing that I don't drink because I do not kiss arse (there was that one time in Amsterdam though..) Very rarely do I smile now and this can be quite off putting when you are at a writers' convention with a slim self published novella in your hand. People don't know whether I am going to hit them over the head with it or hand it to them.
When I came out of prison a friend that I had known for 18 years said "I can't read you anymore" and I thought that was a very telling remark because it was obvious that prior to my incarceration that my facial expressions were being read but that now days and nights in a cell had turned me into 'Dai Inscrutable'. I mention this because the story of my incarceration became a blog and then became a book with a self proclaimed 'mental health publisher'.
Another more recent friend, post incarceration read the book and said "It sure could have done with editing" and you would have thought that that onerous task would be the publishers.
I like writing but I don't like editing. We edit because we are thinking more about the reader and less about ourselves. Less of our vanity is invested in editing.
It's choc full when writing though. We are like the new MP in the House of Commons when we are writing, we are running up to the Speaker like a week old puppy and twirling Black Rod's rod like a cheer leader's baton when we are actually writing, when we have sat down and have stopped the prevaricating, the procrastinating and the social media. Although an endomorph like Johnson I like to sprint in my writing, I like to get it all out there like vomit on a porcelain toilet and then editing is like pulling out the sheets of 'Juan Sheet Plenty' and wiping up around the basin carefully. Novel Writing suits those with staying power, those with patience, those who enjoyed the cross country run at school and who didn't cheat and mitch off half way. The short story and the novella are for the sprinters, for those who can lash it over a 100 metres.
The phrase we love to hate "At the end of the day" we want somebody to take a punt on us and say "Eeeh lad you've got summat ere, tha's got a tasty turn of phrase there. I think we can turn you into a politician, I mean writer. Do you have a hide like a rhino? Are you willing to do the book signings and the writers' conventions? Could you possibly try and smile?"
