How To Become Rich and Famous Without Writing a Bestseller

My father used to sit deep in his armchair, and get a far away look in his eyes, once he'd given up on seducing divorcees and widows and taking their money.  'I ought to write my memoirs.  There's nothing Errol Flynn did that I haven't done.'  The dream of the book that could be written seems to be pretty universal.  Mostly, when they're dreaming, the book becomes what everyone calls a bestseller.  I suppose that means it sells millions and makes millions for the author, who becomes famous, which means going on TV (Richard and Judy, or Oprah in the US) and exotic travel and probably meeting the film stars who will play the characters from the book in the movie - which means getting richer, being on more TV...

Rich and famous and writing books are only linked when they're in that order.  If you're already rich and famous you can get to write a book, though usually that is using the word 'write' in a special way, to mean not write.  Try it the other way round: book to rich and famous and the statistics take a nose dive.  Most writers don't get rich writing books.  Actually most writers don't even earn an unsupplemented living.  But I suppose the idea is that writing is more 'democratic' (in that special use of the word to mean 'anyone can do it, even me') and that you don't need the strict got-them-or-haven't attributes that someone wanting to be a movie star needs.  If you are literate (though it's getting to be a much less than universal ability) then, the thought goes, you can write a book.  If you have a life, a mind that thinks, then you can write a book.  Have story; will narrate.  So my father thought, though he didn't actually put it to the test. 

Nowadays, he would have joined a creative writing course, that marvellous money spinner for cash-strapped universities.  It's always been the case that people will find a way to cash in on daydreams.  What's new is that educational institutions are ripping off their students - customers, these days, like any other business.  Buyer beware.  You can take a narrative to a creative writing course, but you can't make it a fine novel. 

Then there are those who want to write, not because they want to be rich and famous, but because they know that's what they ought to be doing.  Almost invariably how they go about it is to write.  Sometimes they get stuck on the fear that they can't be the quality of writer they want to be.  To feel yourself a writer and also to think you may not be good enough, is terrifying.  There's no safety net for the chasm of turning out not to be less than you wanted of yourself.  All you can do is get on with it.  You find out how to write by writing, just as you find out what it is you are writing by writing it, not by going to a creative writing class to be told about what page the first 'inciting incident' should be on.

These are two different daydreams.  I don't suppose that those who want to make a bestseller really fancy spending their working lives alone in a room every day having to invent things that aren't already there, to be compensated by going to the same party with the same people every Thursday.

Really the job of writing is for those, like myself, who are socially dysfunctional.  I actually want to be on my own a lot.  I hate parties.  And I don't have the slightest desire to do any of the things that people seem to do when they are very rich (aside, of course, from not having to worry about money - though I suspect that the very rich have to worry about money more than I do).

There are much better ways of getting rich.  Though he wasn't very good at it, my father's efforts as a con man were much more promising.  Being a celebrity is good - being famous for being famous.  People knock it but if you're sociable and have no other plans, it's probably a dandy way of getting rich.  Sleeping with famous people has its drawbacks, I imagine, but it's got to be better than sitting in a room writing a book if you're not temperamentally suited.  Robbery and business obviously have the advantage of communal endeavour over a solitary writing life, and though in both cases you might end up in prison, it's a lot less isolated (here I assume it isn't robbery or business with violence) than getting 90,000 words on paper in the right order. 

Get a grip, people, either get on with it and write your book, at the weekend, after work, before work, during the vacation, or on a pitiful part-time income, or choose a proper way to get rich and famous.  No one is really going to teach you how to be a writer.  You need a pile of books (not how to be a writer books, but books writers have written), some paper and a pen or a wordprocessor.  There are a few of the more expensive creative writing courses that are really designed not to teach you to write but to introduce you to agents and publishers, to slip you into those parties you will be begging not to have to go to if all goes well.  They're more like finishing school, designed to give an advantage over others, but trust me, you're still going to be dumped when you don't make the sales.  My view is that we desperately need independent publishers.  If you've got the money and are thinking of going on a creative writing course, ask yourself if you really are a writer, and if the answer is not a grim and absolute 'yes', then save up the money, go into business or sleep with a footballer, and when you get rich, start a publishing company that is only interested in writing.

Comments

[Jenny Diski]

Best sleep with a footballer as well. Anyway it might be more fun than a creative writing course. Or not.

[Kerry Clare]

If I am already enrolled in a creative writing course, is it too late to sleep with a footballer?