Want to be your own boss? … You’d better be a good one!
Authors like NYT best selling author Wiley Cash shown here with me at The Blue Ridge Book Fest usually have a strong message in their work.
“I want to be my own boss. I don’t need some rectal aperture (my substitution) hanging over me, pushing me every second of the day.”
This was an answer to my question, “Why do you want to write?” One of the authors whose work I read … who wanted my opinion … was adamant about all the bosses he’d worked for over the last fourteen years and his last nine jobs. Having hired and fired many people during my work career, the smell of dead fish wafted in the breeze.
“All the people you worked for pushed you?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What did they say your problem was? The quality of your work? The quantity you produced?” I had a specific reason for asking. Though there was a hint of talent in his writing, there was a large red flag fluttering above.
“Mostly quantity, but they bitched about everything. Particularly, the women I worked for.” He frowned as he said that. That told me something since I’ve found women are usually more than fair when judging a workers output.
There was a pattern in his writing. It started out in a well-ordered coherent manner. The work was engaging and the prose solid. Then … then … it degenerated. It became rushed, disjointed, and sloppy. This cycle repeated six times within the novel. The writer became bored and “just rushed through it” at his own admission. We had a discussion about the need for actually being your own boss, if that is the path you choose, and the imperative for a writer to have a massive dose of self-discipline. After we went through his work, he accepted the need and conceded his biggest challenge would be to push himself.
Yes, you are your own boss when writing. You had better be a damned good one. If you aren’t harder on yourself than anyone you ever worked for the probability of your reaching success in the hyper competitive world of published writing is geometrically diminished.
If you think your agent, editor, and publisher are going to say, “No problem, take your time, no rush,” when you miss a deadline, I have the Pacific Ocean I’ll sell you at a bargain price.
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