Ditch job, become an author!?

[Pigsmummy]

I haven't voiced this in RL, I would love to ditch my well paid job and write some gritty fiction. I read a lot, hundreds of books of different genres, I also really enjoy theatre. I have the outline story of about three books in my head currently and in my day to day life find situations that I would love to write about.

Where do I start? Do I type up my outline and try to enter competitions? Do I write chapters then send them to a publisher? (I work in sales so have developed a thick skin regards rejection). How much might a publishing deal be worth? (kicking myself that I didn't get this nailed before ebooks came along).

I have wanted to write for a long time (most of my adult life) but suppressed the desire, i have a good job, been in this position for 6 years, my colleagues would be astounded by my lack of motivation and enjoyment of my job as i hide it well, I often sit through high level meetings wishing the time away so I can get back to my Kindle.

Is this madness? Has anyone done this?

I am 39, married with one DC btw

I have spent years years nagging him about maths homework / exam revision / his household chores and he has ignored me and snuck off to write. His current success was achieved in the face of stiff parental opposition, I can tell you!

Has anyone mentioned NaNoWriMo? Ds book wasn't a NaNo book, but he has done NaNo for several years and it's a very supportive community.

Imperial Blether your analogy doesn't quite seem right to me, I wouldn't expect to be able to become a surgeon without many years of formal training,

I agree, you can to an extent learn to be a writer but I believe people are born to be writers or not. You can learn to act but do you have that sparkle that resonates on screen. you can learn to be a pianist but do you really feel the music and have that sensitivity and can you translate that to the audience.
I know one writer who is OK but his books are about not very interesting stories. They may be very well written and faultless in that regard but the subject is boring.

Impossible to know if you have that spark, until you try.

Frau I don't think you need to worry about readers, what are we all doing on MN as an example.

Cream has a good chance of rising to the top.

WorraLiberty, what are your opinions on this?

so WorraLiberty, you're back. What have you got to say?

I definitely agree with SGB about socialising with writers. I've found a huge benefit to just talking about writing with other people - it helps me articulate some of the vague ideas I have. I've had a couple of real lightbulb moments in writing groups and workshops where someone has just voiced something that's been niggling at me.

There are some really basic building blocks that most decent writers probably know about, more or less, but it's helpful to be able to understand why things work and don't work - things like viewpoint, distance, voice etc

If you want to immerse yourself in writing and get some feedback from some well known authors about your writing and about writing as a career in general, go on an Arvon course. I did and while I didn't really enjoy it (I was in with a group that didn't get along too well) it was certainly eye opening. One of the tutors had been a Richard and Judy pick but she still barely made enough to live on, which really surprised me.

Yoni, surely judging whether the subject of someone's novel is 'boring' or not is entirely subjective? A really good writer's talent can make the reader interested in more or less anything, even a hackneyed situation.

If you look at the Amazon reviews of even absolutely first-class novels, there is almost always a hilarious divergence of views. Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and its sequel, for instance, seem to attract more than their fair share of people who seem to blame her for not being Philippa Gregory. One reviewer who gave Wolf Hall one star said s/he'd given up after 10% and sent it to the charity shop, and was reading Paul O'Grady's autobiography instead which was much better and 'written in the Queen's English at least'...

Your right Book, I am privately thinking of someone who teaches CW and teaches lots of courses his classes and critiques are brilliant but when he wrote some stuff for a friend it was old fashioned should we say....I can only think of sort of 80's sci fi...so not interesting at all to me, I am no star treck fan!

It was surprising to see the novel, after being taught by him,

Yes, even spark is subjective isn't it. It's not only cream that rises to the top.

You need an immense amount of hard work plus quite a bit of luck I think.

Ooh notjusacigar, tell us about your course. I've heard there usually is a lot of shagging?

If you think about the top five books/authors that everyone's heard of in the last few years, at least two of them are absolute shit, and there is no real explanation of why they became as ridiculously successful as they did.

Yes is it and of course preparation meets opportunity etc, and yes of course not only cream rises to the top, but I would argue that someone who does have natural spark is going to attract lots of readers rather than someone who has no spark but lots of technical skill.

I imagine that millions of sparky people are out there not forfilling their potential and so on, but op may have spark, ie, you cant rule anything out yet. you also have to tap into the zeitgiest or whatever it is of your time like helen fielding.

Go on, SGB, say which.

Yoni, a novelist friend who teaches on a prestigious CW MA is complaining of the enormous amounts of sci-fi being produced by her current students. What drives her mad is that she has them read a wide range of novels from a variety of genres, and they get very snooty about anything set in a semi- in Surbiton. That and the fact that their works in progress all seem extremely long and to involve an awful lot of world-building.

Oh of course op must go for it, and write, we are all agreed on that.

It's the ditch the job bit that raised eyebrows. (but she has since clarified)

Not much shagging, I'm afraid - there were only two men in my group, both married, and the tutors and other students were all female (not that that any of that necessarily precludes shagging but I think it did in our case).

The course itself was very good, with writing exercises and then we would all go around and read our work and get feedback. The feedback was all pretty milk toast in the group, although the tutors were a bit more forthright in the private sessions we got with each of them.

One of the authors I took a fairly strong dislike to, as she was extremely negative and nasty about other famous writers she knew. I was strange because I had loved her novel to the point where I thought that would mean I would feel an instant connection with her. In fact it was quite the opposite and I won't read anything else of hers now. The other author was lovely, though.

I don't know. Our group just didn't really gel and it made the atmosphere a bit awkward. Not conducive to focussing on writing, really, but I think I was just unlucky as all the online reviews of Arvon course are extremely positive.

All in all I still recommend Arvon but keep your expectations reasonable - don't go in expecting shagging, late night conversations with new found soulmates and earth shattering revelations about your writing, though if any of that happens think of it as a bonus. But if I had the choice I think I would spend the tuition money on one of the mentoring services instead.

My post above was in answer to Thisisaghostlyeuphemism asking about Arvon - a bit confusing out of context I'm afraid.

Bookroom: Can't you guess? Two novels read by millions of people - predominantly the sort of people who haven't read a novel since they were 10. That's the only explanation I can think of as both books are mindbendingly awful.

Ah thanks notjustacigar, yes, I can imagine expectations would be high - not least because its pretty pricey too. It's a shame your group didn't gel.

Did you feel your writing improved because of it - or did you make any connections?

The shagging image put me off a little. Glad it's not obligatory :)

I kinda stopped writing after the course - basically i realised i wasn't willing to put the necessary time and energy in and no I didn't make any connections.

Oh no, that's not good... It might be that when you've got something you want to say/a story to tell it will come back to you with a bang.

There's a creative writing section on Mumsnet. We occasionally read each others work (iimperial has kindly critiqued mine.) It would be great if more people used it.

I haven't ever been taught any surgery however we are taught creative writing in school and for me in the subsequent studies I did at evening class when I was young, so not the same?

But, you're making the mistake of assuming that writers (published professionals) don't have highly specialised, specific, and expert skills, abilities, and talents. Just as a surgeon does.

Don't worry you're not alone: most people devalue and underestimate the work of a writer, and craft (before you get to talent) of writing. Henry James did it to Jane Austen: he wrote that she composed her novels as naturally as a bird singing. That is, that Austen's novels were "natural" and not emerging from skill, craft, talent, and art (Dylan Thomas is excellent on this: "In my craft or sullen art").

I write academic books, not trade, and after 4 books I think I know how to do it now. But that's 20 years on from my PhD, the first big bit of writing I did. I write every day.

I'm an author (at the moment in my spare time). I wrote all my life, it is something I have always done.

Do you want to be a writer or do you just want a plan B?

If you want to write a book:

• write a whole book
• do a couple of rounds of edits
• query some (10?) appropriate agents usually with first three chapters an synopses
• start your next book while querying as they take months to respond
• they then ask for the full and represent you if you're in the vast minority!
• they then try to sell to publishers, probably again a minority sell
• then you might get an advance or just small royalties

Quitting your day job before getting a book deal would be madness. I wrote my first novel in the evenings after work.

Also, it's a craft. I had Ben writing for twenty years by the time anything happened for me, and it was with my second novel. The only way to learn is to DO - why haven't you ever written fiction? Plenty of people want to write (almost everyone), so few do - and as you hone your craft don't expect your first book to be brilliant!

Kingfupannda I'm a lawyer and novelist too!!

Whoops kungfupannda

My advice would be to decide if you want to write or if you want to be published. If it's all about the writing, save yourself the hassle of the publishing process and bung your stuff on one of the creative writing communities online.