If you dig deep and keep peeling the onion, artists and freelance writers are the leaders in society - the people who start to get new ideas out.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think new writers everywhere need opportunities to get published.
Standing out as a writer today requires more than a bright idea and limpid prose. Authors need to become businesspeople as well.
Authors like reading. Go figure. So it's not surprising that we sometimes bog down in the research stage of new writing projects.
I think writers have to be proactive: they've got to use new technology and social media. Yes, it's hard to get noticed by traditional publishers, but there's a great deal of opportunity out there if you've got the right story.
I always feel freelance writers are leading a heroic life. I think that is the real writer's life. On the other hand, it's good to have another job. It gives you something to do.
I don't see myself as an artist, as a writer. The sort of writing that I do, which is popular fiction, it's work. I have contracts to fulfil, and I have deadlines to meet.
We as artists are actively encouraged - by other authors, your agent, publisher, and society - not to think about money, strategy, how to manage your career, how to create a brand, because we're supposed to focus on the art.
From an artist's point of view, I always want to work with the writers I admire.
I really think that if there's any one enemy to human creativity, especially creative writing, its self-consciousness. And if you have one eye on the mirror to see how you're doing, you're not doing it as well as you can. Don't think about publishing, don't think about editors, don't think about marketplace.
Today there are millions of people making stuff and putting it into the world: that's become part of our identity and it shouldn't be limited to people who fancy themselves writers, or who are particularly witty or talented.