You Don’t Have to be a Novelist: Exploring Other Forms of Writing, by Damian Trasler

When I was fourteen, I wanted to sit at a battered Olivetti, with my fedora perched on the back of my head, and rattle off gritty sci-fi novels of intergalactic adventure. Instead I would rattle off essays on the meaning of life, and novels based on the imagined future lives of my friends.

Lucky for me (and them,) all these things are either lost or filed into oblivion. Given the chance to stay home full time when my first daughter was born, I revived my writing ambition My daughter was unbelievably well-behaved, requiring very little hands-on care. We went for a walk every day, and she would sleep in her chair beside my desk, or sit on my lap when she got older. I sold my second short story to a magazine, and my very first non-fiction piece was picked up too. It was an unfair beginning, giving me a strange idea of how easy writing success could be.

From there I found it almost impossible to get into print again. I wrote and submitted dozens of short stories, shopping them around every feasible publication. I tried different genres, competitions, different forms… nothing worked. Luckily, I had picked up a job I could do from home, editing a magazine for R.A.F. families (since my wife was a serving officer at the time,) so I could still count myself a writer: I had to produce most of the content!

My break came when I was told to go out and meet people. I joined a Theatre Club and they were looking for a play to enter in a performance competition. They had heard I was a writer, and asked me to write a play for them. I had never written a play before, though I had spent some time in amateur dramatics in my youth. Since I was a writer having trouble getting a novel finished, I wrote a play about a writer having trouble getting a novel finished. We took the play on to the competition and won an award.

Shortly thereafter, an old friend asked if I could co-author a pantomime with him and a friend. He had found a new type of publisher who was willing to take on the script. This publisher existed only on the Internet, putting scripts up in a format that could be read onscreen, but not copied. Then customers could pay online and download the script immediately. I mentioned that I had an award winning play at home, plus a couple of other scripts I had written since then, and he agreed to host them too. Within fifteen minutes of my first script appearing on the site, it had sold to someone in America: the other side of the world!

From those beginnings, my writing partners and I have added many more scripts to our catalogue, and they sell well enough. More rewarding are the communications from groups all around the world, telling us of their successes, passing on press clippings and photographs of our plays and pantomimes. I have received emails from places I will never have the chance to visit, but they have performed my plays, recited my words and delighted audiences I can’t even imagine.

I am a writer now. Despite the half-dozen odd jobs I’ve taken on since those early days, writing is what I do. I don’t make the money of a JK Rowling, or an E.L. James. Although I believe that quality is vital, that you should strive to produce the very best work you can, there are other factors that influence success. One is chance, which you can’t manipulate. You can’t ensure that your manuscript is picked up by the right person on the day they’re ready for a story like yours. But you CAN do things to increase that likelihood : You can polish your manuscript until it’s as near perfect as possible. Check the submission guidelines to avoid falling at the first fence. Look for an agent to give your submission more appeal. Be open to other forms of writing: you don’t HAVE to be a novelist, you know!

Sometimes life takes you in a different direction. I say it’s worth hanging on and enjoying the ride.

Follow Damian

Blog: http://www.dtrasler.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dtraslerwriting
Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/113893474516410622032

Read Damian’s Work

Coffee Time Tales  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0079OA19K
Writing A Play : http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Play-Amateur-Stage-ebook/dp/B0071OUAOO
Troubled Souls: Amazon US: http://amzn.to/TroubledSouls Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/TroubledSoulsUK

This blog post is Copyright Damian Trasler 2013. All rights are reserved Internationally. You may not reproduce it in any form, in part of whole, without the author’s prior written permission. That includes usage in forms such as print, audio and digital imaging including pdf, jpg, png etc. A fee may be requested for re-use if it is for a commercial venture.

Filed under: Guest Post, Writing Tagged: alternatives, author, blog, Damian Trasler, encouragement, fiction, genre, goals, Indie publishing, inspiration, novel, play, problem solving, success, writer, writing