Okay, I usually try to keep my commissions journal front page because it's good business sense, and I don't really "journal" here. But dA has a writing community that I think could benefit from some of the stuff I have to say, so I'm going to go for it.

I have a lot in general to say to and about the dA writing community, but this journal has a specific purpose, so I'll try and be concise.

I recently joined LinkedIn, a sort of social network for professionals, and joined a few writers' groups. What I found in that community of adult writers aspiring to publishing was almost exactly what I found on dA's network of 13-year-old writers—special snowflake syndrome. I guarantee that 98% of the writers in that LinkedIn group will never publish. And I'll tell you why.

There was a discussion thread titled "As an aspiring writer , will you write something which is close to your heart or something which will sell more?" You can probably predict the kind of responses it got. By the time I posted, every single one of the 100+ commenters had said some variation of "writing from the heart is more important than money/if you're passionate about what you write, it will sell no matter what."

I know that as a young person, like most dA users are, it's tempting to believe that as long as you love what you're doing, you will have money piled onto your doorstep. But let me burst that bubble right now. You won't. But wait, wait. I'm not saying "sell out, sell out!" I'm not saying you can never write what you love. Let me detail what I believe the problem is.

The idea that writing from the heart/writing to sell is a separate, black-and-white issue—you can only do one or the other—IS THE PROBLEM. It is so, so easy to justify never making changes to our writing by saying you're writing what you feel, and the corporate world doesn't have the right to change that. By making yourself the valiant defender of passionate writing, you can avoid ever having to do real work on your writing. Yes, that's right, I said it. People who make those kind of claims are usually just lazy.

The truth is, learning to write to sell, learning to write for the reader, doesn't automatically destroy your ability to write what you love and write what you want. Our hearts are big. We can write from the heart under lots of circumstances. Learning to write for the reader isn't selling out, it's smart. Probably none of us will ever be able to support ourselves by writing fiction. Most published writers have day jobs. Even when you have a few books out, the likelihood of those few books giving you enough monetary return to pay your bills is unbelievably small. So anything you can do to get your books onto the shelves is worth it. If we didn't want people to read our writing, we wouldn't be part of writing communities like dA, and the best way to get people to read your stuff is to publish it. We all want to publish. So why hinder yourself? Why stand in your own way? By turning up your nose at the prospect of "selling out," you're killing your chances of being published.

Once I joined an online writing group that my friend was a moderator for. She told me that it was professional, close-knit, helpful, and full of talented writers. I joined, read the featured story, and left a positive comment paired with a little critique. The author responded by making excuses and ignoring my critique, claiming that the fact that the story was difficult to get into at the beginning was a test for readers, and if they weren't smart enough or strong enough to get past it, they didn't deserve his story. When I informed him that a publisher won't see it that way, he grew even more angry. I asked my friend if I'd done something wrong by leaving a critique. She said no, of course not, the featured stories were there to receive crit. The next day, I had five responses from other members to my comment, all negative, all angry at me for suggesting that this author had to change at all for the sake of money. One compared me to Stephenie Meyer, saying I'd "write anything for a few bucks."

I immediately left the group. This was a community of people who had gathered in order to help each other grow as writers with the ultimate goal of being published, but when I tried to do that, they shouted me down. Why? EGO.

What I guess I'm trying to say in this lengthy post is don't let your ego get in the way of your future success. When someone gives you a critique, don't get defensive; they're not attacking you. And above all, don't see making modifications or edits to your writing as losing truth or honesty or spirit in your work. If cutting a chapter or changing a paragraph or learning to modify a consistent problem in your writing takes the heart out of your work, then you're not a good enough writer.

Okay done.

CSS Journal Coded by =FleX177