Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Writing misconceptions I’ve heard/seen on the web…

 By Gracen Miller


1. Writers have it easy. Ha! Anyone who thinks that I’ll lend you my temperamental Muse—Dom—for a few hours. Then I’ll sit back and giggle as I watch you suffer through his incessant chattering. I might hide so you can’t return him too soon either. My best guess, you’ll make it two hours…or less. When the characters get chatty along with him, it becomes a bit Sybil-ish in my head. Dom wants to chat the most when snuggled beneath the covers trying to sleep. If he were a snoring dog keeping me awake, I’d kick him out of my bed. But I can’t kick him out of my head! Writing is a full time job just like any other job. Not only do we spend countless hours and months writing our book, but we also have to polish it with the editor and then market it when it’s published. Writing is fun, but it’s a lot of hard repetitive work, too. By the time the book is published, I’m so sick of reading it I almost always hate the story.

2. Write it and it’ll become an overnight bestseller. Seriously? Pfft…in my dreams and a billion other author’s dreams!

3. Anyone can write a book. If it’s so easy, then go for it! Writing a book takes commitment and dedication, long hours of actually sitting down to write and not just crafting it in your head. Anyone can daydream up a story, but it takes skill to craft it into a good book.

4. Erotica is mommy porn and most writers of it have no real talent. Wrong! There are some well-written fantastic erotica out there with storyline not based on just sex. Decadent Publishing has gobs of it—and I’m not talking about my books.

5. Book Pirates only steal books they wouldn’t read in the first place so it doesn’t really hurt the author/publisher. Or…books are too expensive and this is the only way they can afford them. Wrong on both counts! First, pirates have ripped off my 99-cent book. How much cheaper do they need it? Free is the obvious answer, which negates their argument. When book pirates deprive authors/publishers of the proceeds from the sale of books, what do you think happens when profits aren’t realized? Authors are dropped and/or book prices continue to increase. It’s a trickle down effect like all retail. And let’s not forget…no one—not even the pirates—would ever work for free!

Where you can stalk me—not really!—but I would love to meet and interact with you:


Huggles,
Gracen

1 comment:

  1. I've heard number 4 a lot from the people I work with! My boss even made fun of me for reading a romance saying "she used to read Nora Roberts but she grew out of it and reads real books now". I refused to talk about books with her any more and she doesn't understand why! I don't make fun of her reading choices and I expect the same respect from her. Yeah, wishful thinking! LOL!
    suz2(at)cox(dot)net

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