Write Good or Die

to write anything they are not passionate about. To do anything else dooms the business.
    Speed Advice from all three perspectives: Art, Personal, and Business.
    Well, every agent I know will utter the phrase: “Slow down and take your time and do your best work.”
    That career advice shows ZERO understanding of how writing is done from the creative side of the brain, how each writer writes at their own natural speed, how slowing down and writing from a critical perspective usually creates complete crap. The statement shows no understanding at all of how art is created by great writers.
    And, of course, it shows no understanding at all of you as a person. Or even your writing methods. You are unique and maybe the best advice to you would be speeding up, or cutting down on rewriting, or doing some rewriting. The agent doesn’t know. They just spout a myth at you like it’s good career advice, even though every writer is completely different.
    To an agent’s business model of only needing one or so books a year from an author, it makes complete sense to say such stupidity.
    But to a writer’s business model, where more product means more money, more chance of hitting it big, more chance of creating art, unnaturally slowing down is just stupid business advice.
    Some projects write fast, some write slow, some art has been created quickly, some art took longer. Study the history of writers and how long it actually took artists in the past to write something to completely understand this.
    But the key is, you are unique, write at your own speed what you want to write.
    PUTTING A BOOK AWAY CAREER ADVICE.
    This is yet again the stupidest career advice ever given to a writer. Some agent will say, “Why don’t you put that book away and work on the next one?”
    My response is “While I’m working on the next one, why don’t you quit looking for excuses to not work and mail the book to five more editors?”
    But, of course, you would never say that because they would mail it dead, meaning they would kill it in their cover letters to editors just to prove themselves right. But what you do is fire them, take the book back, and mail it yourself while you work on the next book. Duh.
    Never let anyone tell you to shelve a book for any reason. ANY REASON. And reasons agents give that seem logical to young professionals are things like:
    —“Your career isn’t ready for this book.” Huh?
    —“This book clearly isn’t strong enough for you to break in with.” Says who?
    —“We got five rejections and it’s not working. Write the next book and we’ll see what we can do.” Lazy SOB.
    Let me say this again. NEVER let anyone tell you to NOT market a book. Not your spouse, not your workshop, and certainly not some stranger who has a business card that says agent on it. Put your work in front of people who can buy it and keep it there. That’s good business. Nothing short of that is.
    Again, back to a point I have made over and over in the other agent chapters in this book. Agents are not trained in any fashion. They have no schooling for agents, no organization that polices them. They have not gone to any publishing business school. They have nothing but a business card and an opinion.
    So it’s bad enough that we writers trust them with our money, with picking editors to mail something to, with trying to get our books into Hollywood or overseas.
    But it gets worse when we let an agent step into our writing offices in any fashion and give career advice. They are not writers, so they wouldn’t know good career advice if it hit them. They are not interested in writers’ careers, only their own anyway. So any advice would just be focused on what was best for them, not for you.
    And they don’t know you as a person.
    In summary:
    —Write what you love, what you are passionate about, what scares you, what you want.
    —Never, ever write to market. Just go into your writing space or office and be an artist.
    —Then, when the project is finished, worry about how to sell it.
    —Never, ever let anyone tell you what to write. It will kill your writing and your career faster than anything ever will.
    Trust your own skills, your own voice, keep learning, and enjoy the writing.

    Dean Wesley Smith— http://www.deanwesleysmith.com
    ###

BUSINESS

    23. PITCHING YOUR BOOK
    By Douglas Clegg
    http://www.douglasclegg.com

    If you're an aspiring writer, the game of getting published seems hard. No one really tells you what to