1) Writing-in-a-Garret Syndrome
It seems half the people I meet are “working on a book.” I met one at the supermarket this week. He wanted to tell me about struggling with his opus—at great length. I tried to be polite, but as my bourbon-caramel gelato began to melt, I suggested he join the Nightwriters in San Luis Obispo—an excellent group for writers at all levels. (And you still have time to enter their annual writing contest, The Golden Quill Awards. More info in Opportunity Alerts.)
“Oh no,” supermarket man said. “I’ll never show my book to anybody. They might steal my ideas. They can read it when it’s published.”
And I got a couple of messages this week from writers who had the same reason for not sharing work. They’ve been told to blog, but fear people will, yup, “steal their ideas.”
These are people writing in a vacuum. They don’t realize that ideas are everywhere, and most writers have more than they can use in a lifetime. These wannabes also don’t know creative writing needs to be read by dozens of critiquers, beta readers, and editors before it’s ready for publication.
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7 New Writer Mistakes that Make you Vulnerable to Predators
Published
just moving along like everyone else 