So you never got it published, eh? I bet it's pretty good though. That was twenty years ago ... maybe you should blow the dust off the manuscript and try again.

~~Bonnie


>I'm sure I mentioned before my abortive career as a novelist. Twenty years ago, I wrote a book that was exactly the book i wanted to write (Headhunter Jazz), my first reader was one of my favorite authors - a guy Ed McBain, Donald Westake, Elmore Leonard and a whole lot of others had on their favorites list - and he loved it and recommended it to both his publisher ( Warner ) and his agent. Got three readings at Warner and then change requests. I lost interest in the whole process ( probably dumb ) but my mentor ( Ross Thomas ) advised me that there really wasn't big bucks in writing the stuff that I wanted to write and his agent said publishing was all about blockbusters now and everyone was swinging for the fences. ( Serial killers and cats ) You could make a living at the kind of writing I admired, if you were lucky enough to develop a following but it wasn't best-seller land. ( Mr. Thomas did probably 30 books over his career and said he made about as much as the President in any given year - he also won two Edgars ) At some point it occurred to me that ( as you mentioned, Tracy ) it is tough to write stuff you wouldn't particularly want to read and if you write for yourself there is a lot of satisfaction in it, but even mildly depending on someone else's opinion of it just takes the fun out of it.
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>So I still write my favorite books <bg>
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>But there are still people out there who write reasonably popular stuff that I enjoy and some I even would have been proud to have written.
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>(I'm currently reading James Ellroy's latest Blood's a Rover He is an an example of a very successful author I admire greatly.)
>
>
>>>
>>>I think I know what set me off. "The Lost Symbol." Dan Brown is financially probably worth you, me, and everyone else here put together. I read the last 200 pages last night just to see how it turned out. So yeah, he has that going for him. Kudos. But as a stylist he is horrible. The man cannot write. That he is so successful says more about where we are as a culture than about his abilities.
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>>>Envy? Maybe.
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>>>The millions are something to think about, though. Maybe I should turn to trash fiction ;-)
>>
>>So now you are a snob? You can watch a movie purely for entertainment but reading a popular novel (which is written for the same purpose) is beneath you? It's pretty well known that those who write popular novels earn more than those who write critically acclaimed works. If you really want to make some $ and you don't have a Harry Potter or Dan Brown novel in you, write a vampire series or go even further down the pike and write a romance novel. Those things sell like hot cakes. :o) I've read a couple of the books in a few vampire series, but I've never made it through a romance novel yet and probably never will. However, I once spoke with a publisher who told me that romance novels is where the $ is. He told me it would be an easy way to put my daughter through college, but I responded that I'd probably be unlikely to write one very well unless I could actually read one first :o) I did try talking my mom into it though. She declined :o( We've decided to write though and this time, we are writing alternate chapters. It's really an interesting experience trying to pick up the loose ends and carry on a story when you didn't write the previous chapter :o)
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>>Since you didn't seem to like one bit my snippets of a previous book:
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>>Re: I know this is not a writers' group, but.... Thread #1209048 Message #1209458
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>>I'll refrain from posting anymore and forcing such drivel upon you. :o) (Just kidding)