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Heredity or environment. Which plays a greater role in a person's development? It's a question that has dogged society for centuries.
It's a question that's particularly relevant where great writers are concerned. Are great writers born? Or are they made? Does anyone know for sure? And, if so, how?
Everybody has an opinion, I'm sure; and that includes yours truly. In fact, I have more than an opinion. In my own humble way, I have managed to ferret out the truth. And now I'm prepared to share it with you. (Ain't I grand?) |
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Great writers are born. Period. End of story, end of discussion.
Well, sort of.
Because I happen to know that I wasn't born a great writer, although others have told me over the years that I am today one of the best. (Sure, they may have been drinking at the time; but that's another story.) My early writing, though great of quantity, was anything but great of quality. In fact, when I was a fledgling writer just setting quill to paper, my work was genuinely uninspired. Oh, uninspired, hell. It was trash, pure and simple.
And then I went to college, where I majored in creative writing and journalism. Afterwards, I took a job as an assistant articles editor with a major national magazine. I moved up to become editor, stayed there for seven years, and went on to become an editor at numerous other magazines, newspapers, and book publishing houses.
I wasn't particularly nuts about editing: I wanted to be a successful (i.e., "great") freelance novelist. And, by God, one day I would be.
But it took a long time to make the leap from writer of ill-regarded crap to writer of laudable fiction. I mean a long time. Why? Because I was born to want to be a great writer (heredity), but I was forced to learn how to do so (environment).
So if you think you're a great writer, but not many other people seem to share your optimism (including those damned pesky acquisitions editors!), maybe it's time to take stock of your literary strengths and weaknesses. Maybe it's time to take a workshop or two; to join a writing group; to take a part-time job as a newspaper stringer; or to tackle an editing position, at either a brick-and-mortar publication or on-line. In all the time I spent going to classes to learn how to become a great writer, I never learned nearly as much as I did from working day-to-day as an editor.
And, in the end, if you do everything you can possibly do to turn yourself into a great writer without success, you can always take solace in the possibility that it really isn't environment that plays a major contributing role in a writer's success after all. It's heredity.
At which time you can blame your parents.
Until then...
Smoke if you got 'em.
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