Justus’s Faculty Blog

I just got a question from a creative writing student that usually doesn’t show up until much, much later in the term. There are some questions that we teachers hear all the time, and over the course of our teaching careers we develop stock answers. I think I’ve answered these questions better in the past, but for the sake of posterity (and anyone reading this blog who might be interested) here are my responses:

In terms of getting someone to look at your work, the best advice I have is to write some short fiction and send it to any literary journal you think might be interested. Of course, that involves researching all the literary journals across the country, especially the small ones… it’s time consuming, and there’s a massive amount of rejection, but if you keep writing and submitting, you’ll eventually start to get publication credits. After you get a few things published, you then have something to show publishing houses: “Hey, look, someone not related to me thought my stories were good enough to publish.” That’s kind of how the industry works. Unless you happen to find yourself in a position to make friends with a famous writer with connections or an editor at a publishing house (that also works).

I do have a suggestion for someone who would one day like to become a full-time author: marry someone rich, so you either don’t have to work or can work a part-time job, and can spend all your time writing. Barring that, you might try winning the lottery. But there’s only one real piece of advice: if you really want it, don’t give up. That’s harder than it sounds. First, you have to accept the fact that you might never be a full-time author. Next, you have to accept that you might work all your life pursuing a dream only to end up dying without that dream coming true. Finally, you have to decide that even if your dreams never come true and you never end up publishing anything, you still want to write because you love writing and can’t live without it.

And as for the challenges of making ends meet between publications: most authors aren’t full-time writers. Only the big ones who sell millions of books and have those books turned into movies. Most publishing authors, even highly respected ones, do other work, even if it’s just part-time (teaching’s pretty popular).

Pretty depressing, right? The best thing you can do after reading this is think to yourself, “That Ballard guy is full of crap. I’m going to be a successful novelist.”