The Many Deaths of a Fiction Writer

Writers, this is SO worth the read.  Check it out, click the link!  ~Vanessa

The Many Deaths of a Fiction Writer:

A Sort of Look At Tombstone Markers…

I’ve been thinking about trying this post for a year or more now, but this last news about the agent ripping off 3.4 million from writers (at least) brought this back to the front. So I’m going to try it.

The idea is simple. From my position of being around for 40 years, liking to watch other writer’s careers, and editing and teaching and interacting with writers now for over thirty years, I have seen what flat kills writer’s careers.

They are always, and I repeat always, self-inflicted wounds.

And one note before I dive into this. Those of us who have survived a long time came back from the dead many times along the years. We managed to survive some of these deaths and return. Most writers don’t, which is why there are so few long-term writers compared to the millions who claim they want to be a writer and stop themselves along the way.

So staying with the metaphor of writing death, here we go.