You Can't Take Your Name For Granted

I honestly do believe that many professional writers out there have become weaker writers over time. In other words, the quality of their writing in the early stages of their careers was infinitely better than what they are producing today. Why is this? They simply are taking for granted their position in the writing community.

As a beginning writer, they had to fight to get what they wanted. They had to work extra hard on that manuscript and did everything they could to make sure THEY were the ones on the top of the editors radar. Proposals were turned in early. Revisions were done with extra care and certainly, finding the best dang story out there was always the highest priority.

And then their name gets out there.

Just putting something out there to wrap up a contract was fine. Revisions were no longer something to produce the best project but just to "get it done." It even gets to the point that the networking they tried so hard to do early on to make a connection with the readers disappears. Those mailing lists and email contacts they created. The chance to answer a few emails from readers was no longer something that was worthy. They were better than that.

I am working on a book project right now and want to include some comments and ideas from writers that I believe have some great things to share. Do I get a response from them? No. I get an automated response simply saying, "I get so many messages it may take a while to get back to you." Oh la, dee da. Do you really get all of these messages or is this just a way to make yourself sound popular?

I even saw on a writing loop some comments about judging comments. There were professional writers saying that they simply don't assist with contests anymore. They don't have the time. This is a wrong attitude. They need to remember when they were a beginning writer and the help they received.

The deal is this. When you move further up that professional writing hierarchy, you have more and more responibilities. Each story has to be better. The networking you do has to be more. Simply being AUTHOR XYZ is not enough.

Scott