Jody Hedlund: Talent Is Overrated

Ever wondered whether you had what it took to be a writer? Ever feared you weren't talented enough? Jody Hedlund's article is a breath of fresh air sweeping away the poisonous cobwebs of doubt. She writes:

Talent is over-rated. Sure it may help to have a little bit of inborn gifting to help you get going on something. Talent may help you progress a little faster and easier.

But . . . talent isn’t necessary to succeed. ...

1. Stay determined. Decide you want to do it. Then make up your mind to stay the course.

2. Don’t get discouraged (at least not for long). Don’t listen to the naysayers who don’t think you have what it takes (especially if that naysayer is yourself!). And if you are discouraged, let it push you to try all the harder.

3. Don’t give up too soon. Stick with it even when you know you’re not all that good yet. Remember that most don’t start out as super stars, that they have to work hard for years before honing their skills.

4. Surround yourself with friends who share and understand the passion. They enrich the experience.

5. Don’t compare yourself to others. While I may have compared my son to others, he didn’t. He always focused on what he needed to do and never worried about how he measured up to others.

6. Work your tail off. Go at it until you sweat and feel pain.

7. Practice daily (or at least regularly). Come up with a routine. Have a checklist (my son did).

8. Continually push yourself to improve. Once you’ve mastered something, then learn something new.

9. Keep the vision of what you can become. Always see the product of what you will accomplish if you work hard enough.

10. Most of all enjoy it. Find pleasure in the process itself, even when it’s hard.

Visit Jody over at Jody Hedlund Author and Speaker and read the rest of her article, 10 Traits That Are More Important Than Talent.

I agree with each and every one of Jody's points, especially #7. It reminds of Kris Rusch's post, Writers and Business. Kris writes:

Talent is, as the cliché says, its own reward.

And its own curse.

I have watched hundreds—and I do mean hundreds—of talented writers fall by the wayside as their less-talented (by the judgment of a teacher, editor, critic) fellows succeed. Why are the less-talented succeeding where the talented fail?

The convention wisdom is that the less-talented appeal to the masses, as if the masses are a bad thing. But what’s really happening here is this: The so-called less talented feel that they must work harder to get where their talented peers are naturally. So the so-called less-talented end up with a work ethic where the talented have none.

But what about the people who are clearly better at writing than others in the class? Aren’t those people talented?

No. Sometimes what’s considered talent by a professor is simply that a writer writes to that professor’s taste. More often, however, the “talented” writer has had more practice than others and is more skilled by the time they get to the class.

The rest of Kris' article is equally great, a must read if you've ever felt droopy and depressed, wondering if you have enough talent to make it as a writer.

As Stephen King once wrote: Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

Amen.

Related links:
- Terry Gilliam: Talent is less important than patience
- Kris Rusch: The Value Of Imperfection
- The Key To Being Talented: Work Hard!

Photo credit: ♥JanltoilE♥

How Important Is It To Promote Your Books?

Book Promotion

Kris Rusch says: not very. She writes:

The person who disagreed with me ... was convinced I didn’t know what I was talking about when it came to the necessity of promoting work, particularly for a new writer. The writer actually said that I had never had a point in my career where I was unknown, which made me laugh. Um, we were all beginning writers once upon a time.

The writer challenged me to self-publish things under a super secret pen name, and was convinced I would understand then why new writers need to promote. I actually responded to this one—I usually don’t—because of the challenge, and because I’d met it  years ago.

I have four things up under four super-secret pen names, things which I put up with no promotion. One outsells everything I do under my name and my known pen names. One isn’t doing very well at all, and two are doing okay. All outsell some titles I have under the Rusch name. So I have met the challenge, plus some.

Because I had to explain to this new writer that back in the Dark Ages of Publishing when I started, there was no such thing as Twitter, blogging, Facebook, and the like. If a writer wanted to promote her work, she had to spend more than her advance to do so. Because even back then, publishers didn’t promote 95% of the books they published. Those books would sink or swim based on sales in bookstores that might or might not carry the books. Some of my early work wasn’t even listed with description and a cover photo in the publisher’s catalog. Just a one line listing under “Also Available” which was arranged by genre.

So how did a writer sell a lot of copies of her book? She wrote another. Back in the Dark Ages of Publishing, before the conglomerate bean counters got involved, most writers (even new writers) got a multibook contract. Because publishers knew it was the number of titles on the shelf that sold books, not the quality of an as-yet-unread single title, that got a reader to pick up a book.

So I not only met the challenge in this new world of publishing, I met that challenge every time I had traditionally published a book with a brand new name on the spine.

Read the rest of Kris' post here: The Business Rusch: Careers, Critics, and Professors

It's nice to know a writer can make a living using her craft without needing to promote.

I wonder though, if Kris had promoted her work perhaps she would have sold even more books. I guess then the question would be: would she sell enough copies to make the promotion worth it. If, rather than spending time and money on the promotion, she had just written, would she have made more money in the end? I could see that being the case.

Kris' post this week is wonderful, as always, and very encouraging. It follows her and Dean's theme of: Just write! I don't think we can get better advice than that.

Related reading:
- Henry Miller's 11 Writing Commandments
- Kris Rusch: The Value of Imperfection

How to Kill Your Writing Career

There is only one way to kill a career: Stop writing.

That's from Dean Wesley Smith's latest blog post in his Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing series. If anyone is timid about letting go of their manuscript and sending it out into the world of editors and agents, I would recommend reading this article.

Dean continues:

... if you go into everything you do in publishing believing the myth that you can make a mistake and kill your career, you will make all your decisions from a position of fear. And you will make horrid decisions.