No Name or Shakespeare

What do writers aspire to? I doubt the majority of us aspire to be Shakespeare. In all honesty, while I find him brilliant, he is a bit wordy for these times. Then again, I doubt many writers aspire to be a no name— at least not if you plan to be published.

The more time I spend in this industry, the more I realize it's like many others. When I started my day job, all I was concerned about was doing a good enough job to please my boss. I had no idea I wanted to go into management but years later, here I am.  In fact, when I started my day job, my aspirations weren't really near management at all. For me, writing has been very similar.  When I started writing, I thought that at some point I'd like to be published as that seemed a logical goal for a writer. The more I write, the more I realize the path I want to take to get my work published. I'm also okay with the fact that I am growing and learning as I go.

I believe the majority of writers fall into the same boat. Many of us hope to publish and share our works, but we think about the paths (agent, epublishing, self-publishing, etc.) either much later or too soon and we rarely consider all that comes with being a "Name" out in the publishing industry.  Life as a bestselling author appears to be a lot of work.  I don't speak from experience but I've been to enough conference workshops to hear what these authors say about having a name out there and their responsibilities to the industry and their fans.

Like many other industries, the more you move up within the industry, the more work you take on and the more visibility you have. So my questions to you are… Do you think you have what it takes? And what do you really aspire to? Hope I left you all with some real food for thought.  Take care and happy writing this week.

Filed under: Toni Kelly, What inspires you?, Writer's Life, Writing Topics