Comments on: John Scalzi’s Utterly Useless Writing Advice http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/ I FORGET WHAT EIGHT WAS FOR Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:11:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Scott http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-298596 Sat, 14 Jan 2012 08:24:18 +0000 http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-298596 Thank you so much for this post. Its incredibly encouraging and wise. I needed some of these answers. Great work!

]]> By: marlyyoumans http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-289923 Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:18:48 +0000 http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-289923 Oh, I am glad you posted this again–shall send it to several teacher-writer friends who have lost jobs and are contemplating various alternatives.

]]> By: Angeline Smith http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-261979 Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:21:38 +0000 http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-261979 Personally, I have always loved reading and writing. I just never did anything about it. I got a degree in General Studies, then had to quit after working 5 years because of a genetic disease called Lupus. Then I decided I should become a writer because that’s what I love best that would affect my diseases the least. After attempting to write 4 books, one of which was turned in and rejected, I decided I needed help. I signed up with Full Sail University Online to get a MFA in Creative Writing. I have had no actual income since I had to quit working in 2000. My parents and now the state of Kentucky where I moved to in 2003, helps. This is my last week of school, and in fact I’m reading and responding to this as an assignment. With a Masters from Full Sail they teach you how to write for every kind of media. That gives you more options. The good side is you’re doing what you love and you will get paid for it. The hard part is that John is right: it is hard when you get into the business side of things. I’ve already started trying. I know that it won’t be easy, but I’m willing to do the work. It’s not feasible for me to move to LA. Florida, or New York right now so it’ll be harder for me than others who live in those areas. What it all boils down to here is that you need to decide what kind of writing you want to do. Is it just a hobby to de-stress you, or are you passionate enough to want it as a career? You can make it as a writer without a degree, but it’ll be harder. I have a degree and it’s going to be harder for me because I can’t move. However this is what I’m doing because I know that this is what God wants me to do with my imagination and my writing skills. I have already made some good contacts.

]]> By: Ron http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-257017 Tue, 17 May 2011 13:00:42 +0000 http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-257017 Currently writing magazine column and features with ultimate goal sci-fi novels. Is publishing many short stories the best path to a book deal?

]]> By: My Book Ideas II http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-233615 Sun, 26 Dec 2010 23:20:05 +0000 http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-233615 [...] published novel. From people who have said smart things and know what they're talking about John Scalzi Scalzi, again. Theresa Nielsen Hayden Good luck, by the way. Just write, eventually get to the [...]

]]> By: Chris Townsend http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-222947 Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:00:24 +0000 http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-222947 Hi John,

A friend sent me a link to this post last night after I posted about trying to set myself up as a freelancer on a forum we both frequent. It has been an entertaining and useful read, so thank you for writing it.

I’ve been around a bit as a writer already … trained and worked as a journalist in the UK, but then spent years working on in-house publications for a couple of different companies, including a large international hotel chain you’ve definitely heard of. It was lots of fun, but now I find, setting out as a fully self-employed writer, that I have almost 15 years experience yet without 15 years’ worth of useful writerish contacts.

I don’t know what you know of the industry here in the UK, but if you have any thoughts (or if anyone reading these comments has any thoughts) on the best place to find a good quality British equivalent to your Writer’s Market, I’d be very interested to hear about it.

I’m exercising my creative muscles as much as possible by blogging like fury whenever and wherever I can (all of it aggregated on my website of course) but it would be nice to start making a bit of cash out of my skill. Meantime, we’re running B&B from our spare bedroom, which is surprisingly a lot more fun and satisfying than I thought it would be, but when I’ve finished clearing away the breakfast dishes I’d love to be able to get on with some profitable wordsmithing.

Chris

]]> By: How To Destroy Your Writer-Editor Relationship « Aaron C Simon http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-222481 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 02:30:31 +0000 http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-222481 [...] I’m not going to give you a thorough answer here – there are an absurd amount of blogs trying to do that already, and most of them give the same advice – I will give you valuable advice about [...]

]]> By: Ernesto Ramirez http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-220598 Fri, 08 Oct 2010 20:27:23 +0000 http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-220598 Thanks for the advice, its as useful as the first day you wrote it. Thanks to bring the harsh realities of the writer’s life into perspective. I admit I have been for a long time in love with the “mystic” of the writer, and still complained about my day job and life don’t giving enough time to write. But the point is as you mention, as I have seen the last year and a half that I have been part of “www.pathfinderchronicler.com” that writing is a job, and hard one. And so is the work of an editor… so yeah no bullshit for those men and women. their work is hard enough (we organised a fiction contest, reading and reviewing all the entries was an small hell, if satisfactory, in itself)

So as I told every contestant that participated but didn’t won on the contest… the only way to become a writer is to write and keep doing it. Anything else is time lost.

]]> By: Paula Clark http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-215682 Mon, 30 Aug 2010 04:05:21 +0000 http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-215682 Thanks for the advice. I didn’t find it useless at all.

]]> By: Here’s your chance to rip apart a book marketing campaign and caress its beating heart « The Nightstand Diaries http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-212481 Tue, 27 Jul 2010 02:56:33 +0000 http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/17/john-scalzis-utterly-useless-writing-advice/#comment-212481 [...]  John Scalzi’s Utterly Useless Writing Advice [...]

]]>