(My) Validation as a Writer - Debbie Bennett
As writers, we all need a certain amount of validation (well I do, anyway) – from our peers, our readers, agents and editors, maybe. Before ebooks, the conversation at a party might have gone like this: What do you do? I’m a writer. Really? Have you had anything published? No, not yet, but I’m working on it. The conversation drifts onto other topics as the questioner smiles sympathetically. After all, if Celebrity X can write a novel and be published, it can’t be that hard, can it? And we are living in Celebrity X’s world, where lives turn on a tabloid exposé and sleeping with the right person can be a serious career choice. So the questioner reasons that the poor writer probably just isn’t very good. And that’s the thing. Publishers don’t necessarily want “good”. They want sales. They are in business to make money, and they make money by selling whatever the public will buy. Being good is an added bonus, the icing on the literary cake. If the public want widgets, th...