Myths, professionalism, and writing
Been trying to catch up on some of my reading, and came across two blog posts by Bruce Byfield that I’d bookmarked. Both posts struck a chord with me, mainly because it was nice to see another writer (and a fellow Canadian 
) thinking along the same lines about these things as me.
Myths
First up, Byfield’s thoughts on nine myths would-be writers need to forget. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard wannabe or even beginning writers spout some variation of eight of those myths. The three most pernicious of them, in my experience, are:
- You need to be inspired to write – If you’re going to wait to get inspired, you won’t get any writing done. A good writer can find ideas just about everywhere.
- If you’re talented, you’ll be discovered sooner or later – Again, you have to write to be discovered. But why wait? The more you write, the more you submit, and the more you learn from your mistakes and rejections the better you’ll become.
- Talking about your writing is a good idea – As Frank Herbert said “You use the same energies to talk about it that you would to write about it. You should be very jealous of those energies. Put them on paper, and not on the air.”
Being a professional
As I tell people in the business world (sometimes just to annoy them), professionalism isn’t a matter of what you wear and what you say you are. It’s a state of being, and depends on how well you do what you do. And being a professional writer isn’t just a matter of getting paid to write, as Byfield points out in the second post I read.
While he reiterates some of his previous thoughts, Byfield also points out a couple of things that I regularly tell writers whom I meet:
- Professionals take the work seriously, not themselves
- Professionals write
The second point pretty much nails it for me. If you’re a professional writer, or aspire to be one, you need to write. It’s that simple. Well, it isn’t. Writing is work. And you have to put in the time to become competent and to gain the other aspects of professionalism that Byfield mentions in his post.
Thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment.
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