[ SECRET POST #2466 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2466 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Late day at work, sorry.

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 010 secrets from Secret Submission Post #352.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - omgiknowthem ], [ 1 - troll ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

But they can always stop writing them down, stop making an effort to improve, or stop publishing them...

[(Anonymous)]

And it's no one's fault but their own if they decide to do that.

[(Anonymous)]

because writing is all about getting published. oh you people, give me a break.

If you insult cassandra clare's for getting her (shitty) books published but then see as an ultimate objective of writing getting published, you should be worshipping and taking notes from clare because she's used a perfect formula to get published. (she basically picked up the trends from the last 10/20 years, joined some tropes, some pop culture references, then glue it all up with pretentious writing, and BANG! best seller)

Getting published is about what sells, what people want to read, what entertains people. It isn't about good writing and it hasn't been for a long time now. And it makes sense because the industry of books is now an entertainment industry and entertainment industry adapts to the consumer's tastes.

If you want to really write (apart from the entertainment aspect - which is not a bad reason to write though, if you want to entertain people, great for you! but if that's what you want, why hating on CC? She may be a shitty person, but her books are entertaining to a great amount of people ... isn't that what you aspire?), you won't give two fucks if it gets published or not because it doesn't matter if you get money out of it.

There are other ways to make your work be seen, appreciated, and to disseminate your ideas (because that's basically what "writing" was and, in a more strict interpretation, is about) without getting it published and making money out of it. And even if it isn't appreciated: well a) probably you aren't as good as you think - IMPROVE b) probably you are good (there's always room for improvement though) but maybe your work will only be recognised in 100 years, who knows c) but ultimately, who the hell cares? are you writing to get a golden star in your forehead, is that why you write? If it is, than you're probably writing for others, and again, if that's your purpose, write something you know other people will like (like Clare).

Stop whining. If you're not writing for yourself in a first instance, it's your damn fault you gave up writing or stopped improving. Don't try to justify your lack of drive by shoving the fault onto others. If all the great artists and writers in the past had been only the ones who'd had recognition on their lifetimes, literature would be shitty.

If you're giving up writing, guess what, writing is not going to miss you either and this is the bold truth.

[(Anonymous)]

David Wellington springs to mind. Wrote and posted books for free on internet, then got publishing deal after it got popular and started selling hard/e-copies.

[(Anonymous)]

Best. Reply. Ever.

[(Anonymous)]

"If all the great artists and writers in the past had been only the ones who'd had recognition on their lifetimes, literature would be shitty."

...but that's how it works? Shakespear is so classic and awesome today, because in his time he was a celebrity. Same goes for all the greatest literature of all times, they were all best sellers in their days.

[(Anonymous)]

So that's how it went for Thoreau, Kafka, Dickinson, Darger, and Plath, huh?

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, several of his plays were panned when they came out. Yes, he gained a great deal of fame when he was writing stuff for the King's Men, but he faded back into obscurity very, very quickly. His later plays were basically ignored. Shakespeare appreciation is really an eighteenth-century thing.

[(Anonymous)]

Huh, the more you know.

[(Anonymous)]

And...SHOOTING STAR!

[arcadiaego]

The Great Gatsby was widely deemed the downfall of Fitzgerald's career.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, and Moby Dick's critical reception was disastrous, The Bell Jar was ignored, and all that proves...what, exactly? On the other hand, Don Quixote was popular enough in its day to inspire fanfic, New Yorkers waited on the docks to get their hands on the latest installments of Dickens's novels, and Pride and Prejudice, Adam Bede, The Grapes of Wrath, A Farewell to Arms, Catch-22 and Their Eyes Were Watching God were critical and popular successes.

A distressing number of people have this idea that truly great writing always languishes in obscurity in the author's lifetime because only a few people can appreciate its greatness, while stuff that's popular is all on the level of The DaVinci Code and Twilight. Nope.

[arcadiaego]

That doesn't actually make the comment I was replying to factually correct though.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, no, since that comment is so poorly worded it's hard to tell what the writer was getting at, let alone whether it's correct. But what I took from it was that if only authors who achieved recognition in their lifetime were considered great, our body of "great literature" would actually be a body of shitty literature--presumably because, as I said, the commenter is one of those people who thinks that popular = shit, and that true greatness is only ever recognized after one is dead.

They're wrong. If only books that were popular in their day ever enjoyed the status of "classics" or "greats," we'd lose out on many books that deserved that status. But we'd still have, at a guess, about 2/3 of our current body of "canon" works.