Goodreads Authors/Readers

message 1: by Neil (new)

Jun 26, 2013 12:32PM

Neil Ostroff (httpgoodreadscomneil_ostroff) | 255 comments

Nobody said it would be easy. Nobody said it was always going to be fun. Nobody promised me that after spending twenty-plus years holed up in my office writing novels that anyone would ever read them. Nobody promised me anything would ever come of my writing, and yet I still do it.

Day after day, year after year, I sit in front of this keyboard and tap out characters and worlds bubbling inside my brain. To date, I think I have more than sixty unique, fully-fleshed characters in all twelve of my novels. I’ve been to other planets, experienced other dimensions, felt unimaginable loss, murdered, loved, hated, been promiscuous; I’ve done just about everything I’ve always wanted to do without ever leaving this room. And yet, nobody ever promised me that anything would ever come of this hobby.

Did I ever think of giving up? If you’re a real writer than the answer is of course, most certainly not! It’s not even possible to stop. Telling a writer to give up the craft is like telling a person with the most cataclysmic bout of diarrhea to stop pooping (thank you Stephen King for that analogy). There is no giving up and there is no stopping an artist with the drive to create.

If the digital revolution had never happened and I never had made a dime off my books would I still be spending hour after hour day after day in front of my keyboard? Writing is a habit I can’t stop and I don’t know any other way to live my life. For more than two decades I have not given up and have not stopped writing and as a result in the last two years I’ve sold thousands of copies in five countries. Sample and free promo copies have been downloaded more than 25,000 times.

Funny thing is, none of this would have ever happen if I had just taken the easy route and given up. Never! Nobody ever promised me this would be easy.

To read more about me and my books please check out my blog: ALWAYS WRITING

Click here to read my blog!
http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com

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message 2: by Regina (new)

Jun 26, 2013 11:01PM

Truer words were never spoken. I kind of consider the fact that I've written books a symptom rather than the goal. I just started writing because I had to...next thing I knew, I'm sitting on two novels and working on a third. The kicker is that that wasn't even really my plan. My plan was just to write.

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message 3: by Neil (new)

Jun 27, 2013 05:51AM

That's the writer's soul kicking in.

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message 4: by C.M.J. (new)

Jun 27, 2013 10:14AM