
Should Writing Be an Art or a Career? - dnetesn
https://newrepublic.com/article/124463/writing-art-career
======
vonnik
The word "should" shouldn't be applied to the question. Writing words is like
writing code: some people are paid to do it, and some do it for fun. Both
professionals and hobbyists can create good or bad writing, and they have to
be judged case by case.

Like math or woodcarving, writing is a skill which on the most basic level
accomplishes a workaday task, and with more sophistication may produce beauty.
Maybe all arts are on that spectrum, which starts with necessity and ends with
aesthetics.

On the professional side: Writing is commercialized for various purposes.
Journalists are paid to convey facts; columnists perform acts of middle-brow
cleverness; and novelists arrange words to produce emotions.

All of those products are substitutable goods. Radio, TV and the Internet have
left the industries of the written word in ruins. Newspapers, publishing, you
name it -- there are no barriers to entry any more. Writing has been largely
commodified.

This has a lot of consequences. One is a decline in marketing budgets for new
books. Unless a novel is sure to sell, and even then, a publishing house will
offload the task of promoting the book to the writer. So half a writer's life
will be spent barnstorming from one book-signing to the next.

This is compounded by the networking they must do to land a book deal in the
first place. Like startup founders, authors need to make something that people
want, and then find a way to distribute it. Networking is all about solving
the distribution problem, getting noticed. Nobody else will do it for you...

~~~
sandworm101
>>> ...then find a way to distribute it. Networking is all about solving the
distribution problem, getting noticed.

I'll distribute it. Anyone with an internet connection can put a novel in
front of millions rather easily. The problem isn't one of distribution but
monetization. Book publishers, like movie studios, know there are only so many
dollars to be spent each year on books. So whether a particular book is
marketable has as much to do with what else is happening in that market.

Markets can only absorb so many spy thrillers or romantic romps in a given
timeframe. Quality is now arguably secondary. If you accept that, then it is
not difficult to understand that publishers do not always go with the best
book. Instead they turn to reliable sources, especially friends and previous
authors. Networking and name recognition become the entire game --> the rise
of ghostwriting.

~~~
vonnik
It's one thing to publish writing online. It's another to get attention for
it. Distribution means getting in front of your audience. Posting on a blog
doesn't inherently solve that.

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sandworm101
>> Novelists have a choice: stay in and write or get out and promote.

Ya um, the term "writing" is broader than writing books. Writing is a career
for many, including myself. That doesn't mean we sit in NY brownstones
creating an "atmosphere of gloom and misanthropy."

So ... misleading title. Writing is a skill that is an essential part of many
careers. It therefore should not be approach as anything less. Writing novels
is an art, something that a precious few are good enough to turn into a career
but should be approached first as art.

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hammock
"Craft." My favorite word that blows up the art<->career dichotomy.

~~~
eseehausen
There's a pretty strong tradition of an arts vs. crafts dichotomy though.

Edit: If anything, aren't the traditional dichotomies art vs. craft and career
vs. hobby? Typically speaking, it's widely acknowledged that artists have
careers.

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cafard
Sir Walter Scott, I believe, said that literature was a good staff but a bad
crutch.

~~~
vonnik
speaking of whom... have you read this? [http://harpers.org/blog/2007/07/how-
walter-scott-started-the...](http://harpers.org/blog/2007/07/how-walter-scott-
started-the-american-civil-war/)

~~~
clock_tower
I doubt it. Read _Albion's Seed_, or _Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward
Movement_. The South originates with Virginia, with Jamestown in particular,
and thus with the west country of England; it always was a very quasi-
medieval, quasi-feudal, aristocratic society. Southerners embraced Scott
because they saw their values in him; they didn't change their values because
they liked his books.

(One surprising but evidently true thesis of _Albion's Seed_ and _Bound Away_:
slavery came first, economic uses for slavery came later. In the Southern
aristocrat's estimation, you couldn't be a gentleman without having peasants
to tug their forelocks to you -- and free indentured servants proved
impossible to keep on the plantation.)

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fao_
Does there have to be a distinction? Why can't it be like Programming, which
is regarded as an Art[0], Career and Science.

[0]:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/knuth.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/knuth.html)

------
xyzzy4
The quality of information you are conveying is often more important than the
quality of writing. If you don't have anything to write about, then it doesn't
matter how good of a writer you are.

~~~
stuxnet79
Bingo - one of the great insights I had while struggling to become a 'writer'
\- and after my mentor / editor continually slashed up my writings. George
Orwell, in "Politics and the English Language" even mentions this briefly.

 _What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the
other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender
to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then,
if you want to describe the thing you have been visualising you probably hunt
about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of
something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and
unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will
come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even
changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as
possible and get one 's meaning as clear as one can through pictures and
sensations. Afterward one can choose — not simply accept — the phrases that
will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions
one's words are likely to make on another person._ [1]

[1]
[http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit...](http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/)

------
arca_vorago
While I can't find the video at the moment, one of my favorite writers,
Christopher Hitchen's, put it this way, speaking about having been asked the
same thing: (and I'm paraphrasing) "A real writer finds that they have no
option, that indeed, they _must_ write." or something to that effect. The
point being that writing is more of a passion that can turn into art and/or
career.

~~~
marincounty
I really miss that guy. He was honest in his writing, and in his personal
life.

~~~
arca_vorago
Me too. His abrasive style was one of very few writers who inspired me on my
Descartes like journey into the rabbit-hole and back out, and I regret not
having read his works sooner. The world truly has not yet seen his equal, and
suffers for it.

One thing in particular he said that struck me was that one should write as if
they were already dead. That is to pull no punches. A great but hard to attain
goal.

------
egypturnash
The Internet is wonderful! It democratized publishing - now anyone can put out
whatever they want to, and damn the editors! It's wonderful!

Until you realize that you are one of a teeming multitude of people doing the
same thing. You can't just post something and have it instantly lauded. Oh,
no. You've got to build an audience. You've got to make something interesting
enough that your fans tell their friends about it, and some of them become new
fans who do the same.

And if you've become your own publisher? Well, you get to learn that there's a
lot more to publishing than just putting your stuff in a form people can
physically read(/watch/play/etc). There's designing an appealing package for
your work. There's distributing your physical product, if you have one.

And there's promotion. Yep. There sure is promotion. Did you know that it
often even costs _money?_

You want to get to the point where you can do it as a living? Better learn
something about promotion. Nope, it's not what you signed on for. Nope, it's
not what you passionately want to be good at. Yeah, it takes time away from
improving your craft, and as soon as you can afford it maybe you'll want to
find some way to pay someone else to do it so you can get back to making the
work. But first you need the money to pay someone to do it for you.

Otherwise? Well, you can live off of someone else's money and wait to be
"discovered". Good luck with that.

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MaysonL
_Novelists have a choice: stay in and write or get out and promote._

Or, with the internets, they can spend a bit of their spare time between
deadline crunches and occasional promo trips blogging, tweeting, and answering
fan email and blog comments. Or even podcasting or commenting on HN (cstross,
e.g.).

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vph
The implication is that art and career are mutually exclusive, meaning once
you become professional, you can't do art anymore. This assumption is not
necessarily true.

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PaulAJ
Answer: yes.

