I started Wordsmith Holler to experiment and put myself out there. I have no other reason. It seemed pointless to keep writing first drafts and store them in the cloud. Stored and forgotten. Go ahead and post them and let others decide their true worth.
I also do not understand the current publishing business. Writers are discovered online on Twitter. Can 140-character riffs really indicate your ability to write? I suppose if you are writing one-liners. Before my birth, a writer would sit in a pub, think Starbucks, and write an essay, short story, diatribe, and submit it for publishing. Edgar Allen Poe comes to mind.
I can only count a few newspapers who accepted fiction and that was years ago. Do editors still eagerly wait for a writer to show up with the latest Tell-Tale Heart?
Writing pays even less as well, if it ever really paid much. I made as much as $1.00 a word freelancing once. Freelancers on Fiverr now drop down 300 words for five dollars. The words are just strings of letters filling a need for Internet content.
Self-publishing seems all the rage this year. Write your book in 3 days and become a bestselling author! I sometimes take more than 3 days to outline and figure out the plot. And yet, $.99 books fill the online bookstores with self-help titles and guru advice. If a book is only worth a dollar, can a writer imagine a career of writing, surfing, and living on a beach?
The inspired writers of my youth filled their stories with passion for the craft of writing. Some only wrote one bestseller and yet continued to write books and stories. They were in it for the thrill of writing.
That is good enough.
© 2015, Michael Shawn Sommermeyer. All rights reserved.
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