These are not stories!

[jonrog1]

No, really, it's the actors who have the toughest job and deserve the most respect. Do you realize there is nothing harder than getting out in front of a huge audience and doing your damn best just to impress them, and having them laugh in your face?

Yes, I kind of picked that up during my twelve odd years of stand-up comedy, 200 live shows a year in front of averaging 300 - 500 drunk, angry people. Try not just eliciting some emotional responses from an audience, but precisely the correct emotional response -- and the identical emotional response -- from those strangers. Every 15 seconds. For an hour. Or you suck.

And if actors just stopped improvising and would just say the lines, things would go so much smoother...

But wait, now that I think about it, maybe it's directing that is the toughest job of all. You have to constantly manage the actors, the filming, and so on, and if you don't get it right, everyone rags on you for doing a bad job. That must be the hardest.

That's what 2nd AD's and DP's are for. And somehow, sucky directors continue to work ...

And so on. Look, I respect that you really love your profession, and I can see you take it seriously, but claiming that there is nothing in the world harder than doing what you do is not very accurate and a bit self martyring.

I understand your reaction, and that you were being rhetorical -- but papa_laz hit a nerve, so I was (and still am) being snappy. Please accept my responses with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

I will qualify my statement with "In the creative fields, I believe there is no job harder than writing."

And if you don't believe that, then you haven't lived through a writer's strike.

I WAS going to leave it at that ...

You'll notice some undisguised snarkiness kicking around in your direction though. Some of it is holdover from my anger at papa_laz, admittedly. Immature. I was feeling quite ashamed at myself until the next bit:

I know plenty of people who would do almost anything to be able to write for a living. Living off of your imagination and writing skills is a helluva lot easier than, say, digging ditches, for an extreme example. Everyones job is tough in their own way. No offense intended, of course.

This leads me into a combination mini-rant/inspirational speech. No offense intended, of course.

By an odd coincidence, whenever some writer friends and I get into a nasty situation in production, we look at each other and say, "We ain't moving boxes."

But we say that -- or at least I do, because I did that job. And bartended, and worked a gas pipeline digging ditches, etc., etc. And so I know the difference here.

Making a living writing is not easier. It's more pleasant once you're actually doing it, but not easier. Seemingly a fine distinction, but that's what life is, a series of fine distinctions.

Leading us to the second qualified statement: "Writing for a living is not the hardest job in the world -- but it is incredibly, stupefyingly, exponentially harder than pretty much anyone thinks it is."

You "live off" an inheritance. You "live off" a lottery win.

You don't "live off" your imagination and writing skills.

If you have imagination and writing skills, you have the barest, barest tools necessary to pay your bills with them. Now learn to harness that imagination with narrative structures, dialog techniques and industry-specific styles and tools.

Then, fill blank pages. Fill thousands of them. And if you don't fill them, no co-worker will step in. No union will help you. And no one will care if you didn't fill them, and ask to help, or encourage you (except maybe a loved one. Good for you, now get back to writing.). Now every day, wake up and make something brand new. Or don't get paid. No sick days. No day where you just sort of zone out and get by.

Is writing digging ditches? Not hardly, don't envy that job. But a frikkin' artsy-fartsy life of dashing off a few thoughts before tea-time? Noooo.

Sure, being a writer isn't bad. You could even say "easy" if you disregard the whole ten years on the way to becoming one. But, sadly, that's kind of the package.

(Okay, we're getting to the inspirational part.)

If you want to write for a living, and you just don't have the talent, that sucks. Nothing's more frustrating.

But IF you have the talent and IF you have the skills, and you'd do "almost anything ..." then shut up and do "anything." I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR YOU.

(That's inspirational? Wait, wait, it's coming ...)

Because this is the one field where you don't have to know anybody, you don't have to have gone to school for it (I didn't, nor did most of my friends) or have any seniority. You need to fill pages. Ten minutes a day, fifteen minutes a day, for however many years. Housewives with nine kids do it. Commuters do it. Guys in frikkin' PRISON CAMPS do it.

Come get this life. Come take it away from me, and from every other professional writer, take it as your own. Simple statistics say you're probably more talented than we are. Write more pages, work harder and come tear this career from my bloated, bloody corpse and wave it triumphantly overhead.

(Hmm, very Warren Ellis-y today, no?)

Usually I'm Mr. Nicey-nicey on the boards. But what the heck, for one day I'll be unapologetically opinionated.

So for those "plenty of people who would do almost anything to write for a living ..."

Type or shut up.

John

 

[Existence]

You fail to account for the vast numbers of yanks who read the post, summed it up as a troll, and decided it wasn't worth the effort.

From a purely statistical standpoint, the evidence is clear that aussies are more prone to fall for trolling and flame-bait.

That doesn't even make sense! About 3 Aussies have posted on this thread, thus making the remainder from the States. Yes, that makes us far more prone to fall for trolling and flame-bait.

Anyway, enough of this bickering!

 

[Dr Midnight]

there is nothing harder to do than write. NOTHING. Directing, you have a script to work from, Acting, you have the script as a guideline.

EDIT: He'd refined his statement by the time I posted this, but I'll leave this up...

I also disagree. I find writing to be maybe half as difficult as most things I've tried. I may not be paid for it, and so I've got no editor breathing down my paycheck, but I feel like I do an okay slap-around job. It's pretty easy.

Now, comic book art... I've spent a lot of time doing that. You want to talk hard? Perspective, anatomy, inking, layout, storytelling, black placement, and so on... That shizzy has been far harder, for me, than any creative project I've taken a shot at.

Writing is just letting it fall out of my head, by comparison.
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Side note, for all the people coming in here scourging people who've responded, citing "just a troll"- Why? Please give it a rest. Turning the other cheek is fine if you want to do it. Don't try to shame everyone else into feeling less mature if they feel like stepping up to argue for something they love, even if the ends are all but futile.

 

[drnuncheon]

I know plenty of people who would do almost anything to be able to write for a living. Living off of your imagination and writing skills is a helluva lot easier than, say, digging ditches, for an extreme example.

Correction: you know plenty of people who say they would do almost anything to write for a living. They like the idea of being a writer more than they like being a writer, because if they liked being a writer that much, they'd be a writer.

I should know - I'm one of those people. I had to come to that very dificult realization. I love to write, but I don't want to do it badly enough to do it as a full-time career. I don't want the pressure. I want to keep it as a hobby, so I can quit anytime I want, or blow it off anytime I want, and not have to be thinking 'there goes next week's groceries'. So instead of frustrated bitter drn sending manuscripts out to Baen and Tor and all those other companies - you get the drnuncheon Story Hours. They're not high literature, but hey, they're free, and they entertain a couple of people.

And speaking as someone with my big ol' one (1) sale, and as someone who has dug a ditch or two: digging ditches may be harder on the back, but there's no way it's a harder job. The only reason I'm giving it a shot now is 'cos I'm severly underemployed. Of course, jonrog said all this already, but hey, it bears saying again, from someone on the hobbyist side of the line.

J

 

[Darklone]

Thumbs up for all the storyhour writers here. I like your stuff and many others do so too. And I know that many of you guys are often asking for criticism.

If anyone like Papalaz or whoever would like to help, post at each thread with specific "help".

Now back to enjoying SHs.

 

[DanMcS]

That doesn't even make sense! About 3 Aussies have posted on this thread, thus making the remainder from the States. Yes, that makes us far more prone to fall for trolling and flame-bait.

Ah, but you must account for percentages. If a hundred more Americans posted to this thread, we would still be a statistically insignificant percentage of the US. Whereas '3 Aussies', heck, that's a big city down there So this guy better look out, he's got the whole of Australia coming after him!

 

[Sammael99]

Short Story Shmort Story !

Hey papa,

Good Troll, man...

I don't take offense at these comments that are so obviously meant to inflame without you having even read a snippet of one story hour, most likely.

However, I do take major offense at my story hour being called a short story.

Friggin' hell ! It's something like 140 pages in 12 pt word. Call that a short story ???

Call that a short story ???

 

[el-remmen]

there are others, like Nemmerle, who is an atrocious writer, but whose Story Hour is probably the best on here, by virtue of his !33+ DMing skillzzz and his brilliant setting of Aquerra.

Uh, thanks. . . ?

 

[Henry]

*Henry puts down his copy of Four Colors to Fantasy, looks at Nemmerle and whispers:*

Shhhh. I won't tell 'im if you won't!

 

[(contact)]

there are others, like Nemmerle, who is an atrocious writer, but whose Story Hour is probably the best on here . . .

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Originally posted by nemmerle
Uh, thanks. . . ?

Snoweel means that while you are an atrocious writer, you're still better than all the other story hour writers, who are even worse than atrocious.