(Why) Have we stopped reading fiction ?

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by qcrisp

Short rant: Being a writer really is a terrible business: http://www.alcs.co.uk/Documents/Fina...ation-(2).aspx I've heard the figure that writers, on average (based on what sample, I don't know) start earning a living at the age of fifty. Please imagine those conditions for any other vocation. The report linked to also mentions that earnings suffer a "sharp decline", after fifty. Being positioned as I am, at the age of 44, I prefer the first figure, depressing as it is, to the second, but if we combine them, we get a picture of waiting all your life to be able to earn a living, reaching that goal at fifty, and then swiftly declining thereafter. The word "decline" features a lot in that report. The writer's position in society is materially worse than it was in 2006, for instance. Well, that's all...

I made peace with the fact that I would never be able to make a living as a writer. It would be something I did on the side, assuming I did it at all.

[Arthur Staaz]

Encouraging news for this writer - who didn't start writing seriously until he was 50! Like Mr. Veech, I'm hardly expecting it to support me. Still, there are many talented younger writers and many older writers who have written some terrific works of art and who deserve to be making a living from it.

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by Arthur Staaz

Encouraging news for this writer - who didn't start writing seriously until he was 50! Like Mr. Veech, I'm hardly expecting it to support me. Still, there are many talented younger writers and many older writers who have written some terrific works of art and who deserve to be making a living from it.

I agree. They deserve to earn a living from their writing. But you know as well as I do that you have to live a double life under most circumstances just to purchase bread. I would never quit my day job in order to devote my time to writing. My "conservative" side tells me that's immoral because someone else must usually pay for that sort of thing, i.e., someone else who is doing something they personally dislike.

However, I think the main reason that the quality of writing found in these parts is so high compared to what one usually finds is that money is not (I assume) the primary motivation for writing in the first place. I would make more money working retail than I would writing novels.

Successful writers are as rare as successful marriages. If you're smart, you won't expect it to happen.

[Mr. Veech]

@qcrisp

When I read your Morbid Tales, I thought the following:

These stories are absolutely brilliant! It saddens me that I can't recommend this book to people I know personally; they simply won't "get" it. I guess I'll have to accept this great find as a solitary experience.

[qcrisp]

I might have opened something resembling a can of worms (a can of slow worms? I don't know) with the post about writers (not) earning a living. Let's put it this way, it's been a central question in my life for decades, and I haven't been able to put it to bed with a simple, 'Oh well, I give up.' The main reason for this is that I need time to write in the first place.

Anyway, that's just to say that I don't expect to be able to say much edifying on the subject in a short space of time, on this message thread, and even if I had the time to devote to saying something edifying about it, that would derail the thread and be a drain on people's patience.

However, just two points:

In terms of not writing for money, certainly, if that's what I did, I would have given up a very long time ago. Not only does it not earn me a living, it actively prevents me from earning money in other ways. I realise that the tone of my first post on the subject probably doesn't come across on the internet. I don't think I have a terrible life. I used the word vocation, however; there are lots of jobs that people don't enter for the money, but can make a living at from the start. Writing, of course, is not a job in the normal sense, partly because of the question of demand, which is much more nebulous a question with regard to writing than the demand, for instance, for medicine.

The second point: successful marriages might be rare, meaning that unsuccessful marriages form the majority, but would it be right to expect people getting married not to try and make a success of it?

[Acutely decayed]

not to de-rail, I just remembered where I saw your id pic - Sophie Ryder exhibition when I was in Bath (lost my scarf in a restaurant , good bookshops though- got a Marsden photo book - also semi-decent absinthe)



she riffs on this subsequently

https://www.sophie-ryder.com/bronze

took notes on the first image as soon as I saw it

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by qcrisp

The second point: successful marriages might be rare, meaning that unsuccessful marriages form the majority, but would it be right to expect people getting married not to try and make a success of it?

I wish them the best of luck.

The marriage analogy was bad. I was using the term "successful" as referring to financial success. I think a person should write simply because they she write - they simply must, and nothing whatsoever can keep them from doing so. Some people write as if they were possessed by some unknown force. This is good as well as noble, not to mention sufficient motivation for writing. But the person who sees a Harry Potter book and decides "I'm going to write and make lots of money!" - they need to be pulled aside and spoken to as if they were a naive child. America has this really idiotic idea that if a person works hard enough, they'll be a millionaire one day. More than half of Americans don't even have a stable retirement plan. Of course, I don't think anyone here possesses the latter mentality. I assume we're all acquainted with reality here.

I can't help but think of that corny Aunt everyone has who says things like "Oh, you're going to be a _____ when you grow up!" I stopped trusting my very own corny Aunt when I was a young teenager.

[Arthur Staaz]

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Veech

America has this really idiotic idea that if a person works hard enough, they'll be a millionaire one day.

Reminds me of the old quote, "“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

BTW, I am not a socialist.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Quote Originally Posted by Arthur Staaz

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Veech America has this really idiotic idea that if a person works hard enough, they'll be a millionaire one day. Reminds me of the old quote, "“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” BTW, I am not a socialist.

That's brilliant.

I can't remember exactly how but there was some people making a really good living writing erotic ebooks for a couple of years until there was a rule change at Amazon or something.

But I don't think writers have it any worse than visual artists, musicians, dancers, comedians, theatre and film people.

[Speaking Mute]

I worry about how declining readership will influence fiction itself. One thing I notice is that due to the shrinking market more and more authors, editors, and publications are rooted in academia, and I can't help wonder if this situation will end up resulting in stodgy and conformist writing. It took a century for universities to come around to Science Fiction and Gothic literature, and even more intellectual movements like the Beats and Surrealists weren't embraced for at least a decade after reaching critical mass...