Slow Death of the American Writer? Not So Fast…

Here’s an interesting blog post I came across today, and had to share. It’s a rebuttal of Scott Turow’s NYT article titled, The Slow Death of the American Author.

Scott Turow woke up from his slumber recently to bark nonsense about Amazon’s acquisition of Goodreads on the Authors Guild blog, before being thoroughly eviscerated in the comments.

Undeterred, Turow sought out the considerably larger platform of the New York Times’ Op-Ed pages on Monday to decry The Slow Death of the American Writer.

On reading the latter, my first thought was: if Scott Turow didn’t spend so much time hating Amazon and pretending self-publishing didn’t exist, maybe he wouldn’t be so depressed.

It’s easy to poke fun at Scott Turow’s views. A child could de-construct his arguments, while laughing at how a practicing lawyer is unable to grasp the definition of the word “monopoly.” If you want a proper debunking of his Op-Ed, Techdirt do a good job, but I think there’s no real point attempting to engage Turow on this issue. His hatred of Amazon and fear of change is completely clouding his logic.

What bothers me about Turow’s obsession with Amazon and his opposition to change is not his blatant disregard for the facts (or the definition of words), it’s that he allows this Luddism to become all-consuming, blinding him to the issues that really matter to writers.

Even if we granted Turow his brain-dead thesis, we still have time before Amazon becomes The Great Evil and exclusively powers its website with the tears of exploited writers.

But there’s a bunch of really awful stuff happening right now that Turow ignores, and has been ignoring, since his term as Authors Guild President began.

Continue reading: A List of Things Scott Turow Doesn’t Care About.

Related articles

• Scott Turow Opens His Yap Again (mikecanex.wordpress.com)
• Turow Stands Up For the American Writer But Misses On A Major Point (creativitytech.com)
• Scott Turow decries ‘slow death’ of the American author (guardian.co.uk)
• Kindle e-book piracy accelerates (reviews.cnet.com)

Confidence for Writers

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy – Norman Vincent Peale

 

 

Check out this blog I found on facing your fears:

Facing Writing Fears: Test Your Creativity

 

Related articles

• My daily affirmation (imconfident.wordpress.com)
• 25 Quotes About Boosting Self-Confidence (psychologytoday.com)
• Strengthening Your Belief in Yourself (martinamcgowan.com)
• Boost Your Confidence Today (massageenvy.com)

Getting raw…don’t skim the surface

I’m enrolled at Southern New Hampshire University’s MFA Fiction program. I started in June 2011, and it’s been an eye-opening experience.

Not eye-opening in the sense that I thought I was the greatest writer ever and I found out I’m not. I knew then I had a lot to learn which is why I applied for the program. I also knew I needed a good butt-kicking to stay motivated, and I’ve gotten that too. It’s been eye-opening in the sense that I’m a superficial writer. I tell the facts (what happens first, second, third, etc) and sometimes I show the emotions (okay, a lot of time I tell the emotions, which is bad. Don’t do this. Ever). I tend to skim the surface of what’s really going on. My mentor for the first semester (Diane Les Becquets, who happens to be the program director and a brilliant author) has told me that I need raw, concrete details. I need to dig deeper into my characters. Breathe life into them. Let them tell their stories. Make it believable. Show the scene. Add smells and all the other senses, not just the visual. I interpret all this as writing in 2D. I need to make it 3D. Sound harsh? Not really. She’s so right. Who wants to see a book where no one “feels” the characters? Do I want to have characters no one cares about? No. What’s the point in that?

Why do I skim the surface? I’m not really sure. Perhaps there are things lurking below that I’d rather not deal with. If you’re not a writer, you might say, “Well, write about something else! After all, you’re the one making it up.” To fellow writers, you know that your stories have a life of their own and you have to tell it. You could change it, but it wouldn’t be as true. It would probably come across as fake to your readers. As Diane says about half of my submissions, “I don’t buy it.” I love her.

It comes down to this for me: Face the fears. Whatever they are, even if I don’t know and can’t explain them, I need to forge ahead and get to the center of the tootsie pop. That’s where it’s the best.