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Sunday 13 January 2013

Staying Within . . . .

I'm getting there. It's slow and it's sporadic, but the story is coming to an end. And when I read it back it is - for the most part - the story I set out to write. At 70,000 words and at least another 15,000 to go, this is a 'big' book. I call it a book because that's how I see it in my head, with a beautiful cover and my name on the spine sticking out in a bookshop. In truth it's just a manuscript and it might never see the light of day.

Sometimes you can read something that is so apt, so totally connected to the streams of your life that you half wonder if it was written for you. Of course, it couldn't have been (unless you know the author) but still . . . that's what a real writer is after: a connection between what he or she wants to say and what some stranger feels about it.

After the first excitement of being published (on the cusp of a global recession in 2008/9) I quickly realised that writing would never make me wealthy. Although I would love to write full time, it is unlikely that this will ever happen. I once read a statistic that 90% of writers earn less than £10,000 a year in the UK. I wish. I earn 20p a copy of every book sold. And I write what I want to write, which isn't always fashionable.

So it begs the question why do I (and many other writers) bother? Recently my dad sent me a link to an article in the New Yorker by a writer I admire, Jeffrey Eugenides. Well, Mr Eugenides expresses it better than I could, which is probably why he earns a decent living and I don't. You can read the article here.

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