*First, do away with the word “aspiring.”
If you are writing you are already
a writer, not an aspiring writer. The aspirants are the folks who say they will
write someday when the stars align just right, as in when the moon is in the
seventh skies and Jupiter aligns with Mars.
(Dates me, doesn’t it. The words
for The Age of Aquarius from the musical Hair.)
When beginning a writer’s journey,
the biggest trap is losing oneself to the notion that this is about the market,
not self-discovery.
Conversely, the second biggest
trap is to lose direction believing it’s about oneself only, and not the
market.
Holding both truths at once, seemingly
contradictory, is how to not fall into writerly traps.
Writing begins and forever remains
a journey of self-discovery. But it must recognize fueling stations that take account
of the market. It is about communicating these discoveries, and the market is
the vehicle.
I instinctively understood the first but took a few years to acknowledge the second. Now I know I write for
myself first, and to communicate to others a close second.
1 comment:
Good post. Yes, the aspiring writer bugs me too. Writing is such a voyage of discovery...and from the beginning, I wanted it to support itself and it did within a year with the magazine writing. Alas, that mentality also hindered developing novel-writing skills. I'll always be an apprentice :) Love this writing life.
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