Here is our reality point of view. It will be hard to take for those of you who read this and are identified with being a writer.

I take responsibility for maybe upsetting you a bit. I am a world-known psychologist in dreamwork psychology. I know writers. I am a writer myself.

Should I take my critical knife to your manuscript, or to you, or to both?

You can read my writing craft reviews elsewhere on this site. You may be sure that I can analyze intelligently a manuscript or a published book. And I can also analyze writers.

Writing rescue means how to save the patient but maybe not the clothes that were at least partly ruined in the accident.

Take this Examination of you as a writer.

WRITER’S EXAMINATION

1. How do you take rejection?

2. Do you get emotionally upset at having a project of yours, whether writing or not, rejected, criticized or not appreciated?

3. Do you respond to criticism in any area of your life by first seeking clarity as to what the other person is saying?

4. Do you respond to criticism of any kind by saying at least to yourself, if not to your critic, you are wrong, you don’t know what you are talking about, or any such terms that reject the feedback immediately and out of hand?

5. Do you write because you want to be published successfully and have lots of readers?

6. Do you write because you want to make money writing?

7. Have you been writing more than ten years without having anything of yours published and appreciated by thousands of readers? We are not talking poetry here, but fiction and non-fiction books.

8. Do you call yourself a writer to friends, family and people in general without having had anything published, or if published, not having anything that has sold well?

9. Do you write because you want to express yourself, get your feelings out, express your life experiences?

10. Do you write because you want to produce work that lasts longer than a life time?

11. Do you write to produce work that makes you famous, talked about, admired as being at the head of your generation in writing?

12. Do you write to make a lot of money as a popular best seller?

13. Do you write, and have you proven yourself, because you seem to be born with a lot of talent to express yourself in writing?

14. Do you study a lot of writing craft books, go to a lot of writers conferences, take a lot of writing courses?

15. Do you get jealous of other writers being published and talked about?

16. Are you critical of the work of best selling authors, as if maybe even you could do better?

17. Do you believe that making good contacts with agents and editors and famous writers will get you the right publishers and agents who will make your career go as a writer?

18. Are you as good a critic of your own work as you are of other people’s work?

As you can feel inside yourself, this is a hard questionnaire to answer to with all honesty. You want to know what the right answers are?

The one answer goes like this.

If you have answered yes to most of the above questions then you seem to have absolutely the wrong attitude to further your writing. Why?

Because the above responses and attitudes make you as a writer unrealistic.

Case in point. A survey in 2007 if taken would probably reveal that there are a lot of writer’s blogs out there, I mean hundreds, by writers who have published a book, but a book that has not sold well.

What is a book that is a success?

The book must make good money for the publisher and the writer.

Why are authors’ royalties so low compared to what the public pays for a book?

Because the publishers and their editors, and author’s agents are so poor at picking book manuscripts that will sell to a lot of readers.

One out of ten books published makes money for publisher and author?

The publishing industry must be sick! There is no writing rescue for such a business system.

No book should be published because a writer has made good contact with the decision makers. Only books that will sell well should ever be published.

Yes, but how do you do this? Most businesses would fail if they had such a low success rate. The reason publishers do not fail is because they do not pay their authors at least twenty-five percent of the retail cover price of a book.

How much of the cost of a car goes to the designers and workers who make the car? Is it a mere eight or ten percent?

As writers we should see that to write well in the modern world is a liability for modern writers. Writing is a field that puts its original creators at a terrible disadvantage. Writers are paid very poorly.

Publishers make a profit. Yet they lose money on nine out of ten books?

Conclusion: publishers are not sharing the losses created by their own editors and marketing people. They put their losses all onto their authors that they pay so little to.

Th is is reality. Consider then if you should be a writer to earn lots of money. Don’t think of those very few at the top who do so.

In the dance world there are millions of excellent dancers who train for hours in building their abilities into a professional level. Yet most dancers who train for the job never earn their livings dancing, or even get roles to perform.

Writers beware! Is it not a similar situation for you?

There is no writing rescue unless you do the following:

1. Learn your craft better than almost anyone else.

2. Develop your story-telling imagination better than almost anyone else.

3. Don’t waste your time making contacts in New York City, polishing agents and editors egos, thinking of yourself as a writer, making web pages for yourself as a writer. These things will all keep you out of reality regarding your being a writer in the modern world.

4. Develop one more reality talent. Don’t write things that you don’t sell within a year or two at the most after completion.

5. Money is reality. If the product or service created by your labor does not sell more than adequately, don’t keep doing it!

6. You are not a writer unless you sell, and sell by being a good writer, and not by being a marketer of your own work.

The Reality Facts Again

- You as a writer are sick if you keep writing and do not sell your work or have a substantial number of readers.

- If the product, your book or book manuscript, does not sell well enough for you to earn a living, do not keep doing it.

- How many books should you write that don’t get published and if published don’t sell before you should give up writing? No more than four unpublished manuscripts. No more than four published books that do not make money for author and publisher.

- Learn the writing craft better than almost anyone else in editing or writing, and use it well to write books that sell.

- Develop your story-telling imagination better than almost anyone else, and certainly better than anyone else you know.

- We are not talking talent, the superior writing use of words like a great athletes superior coordination. Talent is great and necessary, but it also needs the highest training possible to develop it. You must have great work habits as well. And be willing to make the necessary sacrifices of whatever stands in the way, if it stands in the way, like family, love relationships, regular work.

THE WRITING RESCUE WE CAN GIVE YOU

Of course, read our advice and analysis on these pages. Test us. Do our suggested writing and imagination exercises. Test our point of view.

But will you act on what we say, a reality viewpoint? Or will you argue with it, resist it, and do nothing?

It’s crucial for you in your life, just as coming to this viewpoint has been crucial for us and made us successful.

Take our products and use them, unless you can find better.

We are the only writing software product that gives you so many useful writing craft tools, perspectives and structures.

That says something. You want the best. You want to survive a little longer as a writer?

We can’t force you to anything but there is reality forcing you to a decision.

If you are serious about you, your life and writing then it is reality that forces you to make decisions. And not us. We present what we know of a writer’s reality. Offer some help in our products. You go from there.

Good luck with the writing!


Writing Task

After taking the quiz above then write out a list of why you currently are writing. Evaluate what writing structures or tools you are using to improve your writing, no matter how good you now think it is. Commit to a new level of learning and writing. Date this page and keep it as a reminder for a year from now to see what you have accomplished.

Tags: story, writer, manuscript, sick book, sick writer, writing rescue, writer's examination