#whywrite — Public Fediverse posts

I don't know anyone who's in it for the $, but it can help to know "what success actually looks like"

Industry secrets are keeping #authors from knowing how much to ask for
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/04/19/book-deals-authors-income/89604598007/

#writing #amwriting #publishing #sales #royalties #whywrite #writingtips

I don't know anyone who's in it for the $, but it can help to know "what success actually looks like"

Industry secrets are keeping #authors from knowing how much to ask for
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/04/19/book-deals-authors-income/89604598007/

#writing #amwriting #publishing #sales #royalties #whywrite #writingtips

I don't know anyone who's in it for the $, but it can help to know "what success actually looks like"

Industry secrets are keeping #authors from knowing how much to ask for
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/04/19/book-deals-authors-income/89604598007/

#writing #amwriting #publishing #sales #royalties #whywrite #writingtips

I don't know anyone who's in it for the $, but it can help to know "what success actually looks like"

Industry secrets are keeping #authors from knowing how much to ask for
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/04/19/book-deals-authors-income/89604598007/

#writing #amwriting #publishing #sales #royalties #whywrite #writingtips

I don't know anyone who's in it for the $, but it can help to know "what success actually looks like"

Industry secrets are keeping #authors from knowing how much to ask for
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/04/19/book-deals-authors-income/89604598007/

#writing #amwriting #publishing #sales #royalties #whywrite #writingtips

Why blog? I took on that topic as a theme as I was thinking about what this next year needed to look like...

https://silencesandsounds.blogspot.com/2024/12/writing-is-momentum-122824.html

#blog #AmWriting #WhyWrite

What should a #writer do, given the imperatives to earn sufficient to eat, live indoors & wear clothes? Accept reality. Only a very few will earn from writing, & even fewer will create a "franchise" which sustains prolonged interest. Instead, ask questions interesting or important to you, & then - if you have, or would like to explore, answers to these questions - answer them. #WhyWrite #writing

Each subsequent issue in the series must then return to the beginning, repeating & repeating, never answering its question, never coherent, never holding to its premise, until the reader is spent. It is a waste. It is not as if creativity is in finite supply, or that people will not invest in countless diversity of stories. Nevertheless, commercial victory is to the few & the instinct to live in that moment is overwhelming. #WhyWrite #writing

The challenge for these two forms is when commercial or creative limits are imposed. Then you get the dreaded series, where the story does not end. Instead the author messes with their premise, producing short stories without questions, or novels where there is no answer to the original premise. Coherence is lost. Instead the words run out, left suspended on a cliffhanger which discards the original question entirely. #WhyWrite #writing

A #novel must answer the question posed by its premise. Its objective is to offer guidance (at least in terms of its author's biases & preconceptions) & establish a complete & coherent world in which plot holes are filled, causation is obeyed, & a sort of "logical" (within the boundaries established by the author) progression plays out. To achieve this objective, a novel must end. #WhyWrite #writing

A #ShortStory asks a question it does not need to answer. Its objective is not to offer guidance, but to challenge preconceptions. To shatter informed reality, whether that be accepted privilege or notions of self-aware intelligence, or anything. A short story can be contradictory, filled with plot holes & inconsistencies, but - as long as the question it asks is a good one - it can be a good story. #WhyWrite #writing

Every story explores a world, inviting a reader to experience themselves as an other in an other place. Their reasons to trust the author, to go into that liminal space at all, will be deeply personal but the writer is only doing one of two things: asking a question, or answering it. Whether superficial, commercial, literary or esoterically strange, there are only these two things. #WhyWrite #writing