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Literary Agent Rachelle Gardner’s post on what happens Behind the Scenes at a Publishing Committee Meeting is enough to make any writer reconsider his/her career choice.

It does seem a mad thing to be a fiction writer anyway–
Very few of us get paid very little, a majority do not get paid at all, and there are more aspirants than authors amidst the thousands and thousands of writer-bloggers in the English-Blogging-Universe I live in.
Most fiction writers are considered “crazies” because they live more in their heads with their characters than in the real world with friends and relatives.
I could go on.
Some days, when it is exceptionally hard to squeeze another word out my pen, I question my own wisdom at attempting fiction. On instinct, I run to books for solace, and if by misfortune I pick up an author I already admire, or end up admiring at the end of my reading session, I run howling again. What could a midget like me have to say after giants like these, that a reader may still like to hear?
But then I go back to writing again, an hour, a day, a week later, because I can’t help it. I’m writing before I know it.
What makes you stick to your writing, and keeps you going back where you left off?
Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

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4 Comments

  • L'Aussie says:

    Saw a sign the other day – Why spend a year writing a novel when you can buy one for a few bucks? I thought that was hilarious and it really makes you think. The answer is that we'll get a lot more satisfaction from writing a novel (even if we bin it) than handing over a few bucks. We write because we love to create with words and can't help ourselves. Only a few major authors and a few talented/lucky enough to break through make money, but the rest of us are like Paige, we don't write for money – there'd be precious few of us if we did. Happy writing! Oh, and I try hard not to be intimidated by the great authors I read. Itry to learn from them..:)

  • aspiring_x says:

    i'd be making up the stories in my head, if i wasn't typing them. but typing them makes them grow, enrich, and seem more alive… (sorry if that's convoluted, i'm trying to cut back on the coffee and my brain isn't agreeing.)

  • Tara Maya says:

    I agree with Paige. I don't write so I can make money, I hope to make money so I can afford to write.

  • Writing just makes me happy. Even if I know that the chances of me getting published are slim, that maybe I am just telling these stories for a non-existent audience, and that nothing I do is all that profound or original, the fact that I am doing something that makes me happy keeps me going.

    When there's so little in my life I can actually control, why not control the one thing that I truly love doing?