go ahead, give it away

A few posts back, I gave my opinion on the question of whether or not a writer should give his or her work away. After discussing the article with a few friends, I realized I should have qualified my thoughts.

If you are a serious writer, one who (1) loves to write and (2) wants to make a living as a writer, then it makes no sense to give your words away, except as a promotional tool.

If, however, you (1) love to write and (2) would like to share your thoughts with friends, relatives or the world, then by all means, give your words away.

I can't imagine the more successful best-selling authors giving their work away. Their aim isn't to merely win fans; their aim is to earn a living and they can't do that by being altruistic, at least not until they have made enough to pay the rent.

I have an old friend who likes to write poetry. He doesn't care about making a living with his skill; in fact, he has a very high paying job that has nothing to to with writing. The poetry is his escape and his way of communicating his view of the world to his friends and readers. I can't argue with the fact that he sends it by email, and I wouldn't argue if he put it in eBook form and gave it away on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. If it makes him happy, it makes me happy.

As an added note, if I discovered that giving away one of my titles would cause people to buy my other titles, I might consider experimenting with a freebie. I'm just saying ....

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Writers helping writers

In my last post, I talked about giving your work away. To reach that end, I discussed my experiences in the early days of the internet when people didn't have the social networking sites to air their opinions, express their emotions, or keep in touch with friends, relatives and peers.

I'm remembering one particular incident that occurred in an AOL chat room for writers. A young girl, a high school student, asked the group for help. She'd been assigned a writing project for her English class. Her requirement? To write a poem expressing her feelings.

She'd already finished a draft and asked the group if they would help her figure out how to iron out some of the rough edges.

At that time, about two dozen people were typing messages back and forth and to my surprise, the conversations began to get nasty. Overall, the consensus was (in summary): Get lost, kid. Go to the homework chat room.

I was mortified! Here, in a room full of aspiring writers who wanted feedback on their work, participants were refusing to help a budding writer merely because she was working on a school assignment.

While I didn't engage in the one-sided debate, I did offer to help. Having taught high school English for a couple of years, I figured that would be an added plus. (Is that redundant? Added plus?)


 The young lady and I exchanged to "meet" in a private room. Here she sent a copy of her work. It was really very good but it struggled at the end. I made a couple of comments about her choice of words and let her suggest more powerful ones.

The poem was about walking through a cemetery where a friend was buried. For the ending, I encouraged her to put herself in the scene, to visualize the marker on the grave, to mentally talk to her friend, and then reconstruct the last two lines according to how she felt.

She was gone for a while. I thought she'd given up but soon, she sent a final proof that was so improved it moved me to comment that I'd be giving her an A if she were in my class.

The next evening, I received an email from her, full of thanks, the message merely said she'd received an A and was now determined to continue writing.

The memory makes me smile, makes me wonder if that young person might now be on the best-seller list.

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Quote of the day (2)

I read a lot of poetry when in my younger days, when poetry for my friends was a chore. My best buds didn’t know this about me. A few suspected, thought it odd, but refrained from commenting. They didn’t understand poetry; often, I didn’t as well.

My favorite poet was (and is) E.E. Cummings, and to this day I have a tattered bookmark of (will you teach a... .

Cummings probably didn’t write this as an inspirational work for writers, but that’s how I use it.

(will you teach a …

(will you teach a
wretch to live
straighter than a needle)

ask
her
ask
when
(ask and
ask
and ask
again and)ask a
brittle little
person fiddling
in
the
rain

(did you kiss
a girl with nipples
like pink thimbles)

ask
him
ask
who
(ask and
ask
and ask
ago and)ask a
simple
crazy
thing
singing
in the snow