It’s time for me to mention one of my all-time pet peeves . . .
Since childhood I have heard people say “you can be anything you set your mind on . . . you just have to work hard and be determined.”
What a load of pig manure that is!
It simply is not true!
Give me a couple hours and I can give you literally hundreds of examples which point out the fallacy in that statement, and I really think it is unfair to feed that garbage to people.
I can teach a person how to write the English language. I can teach them how to write a short story. I can teach them how to write a novel. But there are some people who will never, and I repeat never, be able to write a best-selling or critically-acclaimed novel. They just don’t have what it takes, period, end of story!
And that’s all right! For the love of God, it is all right. Accepting our limitations is all part of the human experience. We cannot all be great at all things, and that’s just the real of it. I will never be a great salesman. My heart just isn’t in it; my introverted personality prevents me time and time again, and I’m fine with that. Hell, folks, I will never be a great writer, and I’m fine with that.
I mention that because someone recently asked me the best way to get her articles purchased by a magazine. Now I don’t know much about this lady; her writing is all right, as good as some, not as good as others; she writes food articles, so the field she is trying to break into is a tough and crowded field. I told her to find a unique approach to the food articles, something never done before . . . whether she does it, or can do it, is a question which will be answered, one way or another, in the coming weeks.
But if she fails in reaching her goal, it by no means indicates that she is a failure. Very few writers actually get published in magazines. Not all writers “make it,” and to me that is perfectly okay. Writing should be an endeavor of the heart, first and foremost. The passion has to be within the writer, and the primary impetus for writing, and the primary goal of writing, should be the actual process of pen meeting paper and creating something.
Anything over and above that is pure gravy!
The path to heaven is littered with some very good writers who were never published. That’s just the real of it. That’s why I set as a goal, somewhat facetiously, somewhat seriously, to become the “Greatest Unknown Author.” It is enough for me, today, to be the best writer I can possibly be.
Bill
“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”
Billybuc
Artistry With Words 