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Hmmm...a very good question. My aim would definitely be that some day I'm able to live off my writing. I feel a writer now, but when you haven't published yet, or people don't know your name, in THEIR eyes you're not a writer. So being able to say : I'm a full-time writer, would be fantastic. I wouldn't mind a good review, fame & fortune!! I mean, that would be the ulitmate proof that you're not the only one who thinks he can write.
Have a great Sunday everyone!
As a few may have read, we have big plans and to be honest we have never really thought of trying to emulate D Brown, JK Rowling and other well knowns, but if we were to hit a common nerve with the public for our characters and it all took off in a big way then that would be great, but we will still open up our bookshop and also, as planned, many more :O)
So for us we're in it for our art and business dreams :O)
Great question Jay :O)
Gary and Carol :O)
What started as an escape from the intolerable bickering and nagging of.... well you know (laughs insanely), has evolved into a wonderful past time.
At the tender age of 40 I now know what I want to do with my life, and that is to share human experiences with anyone wiling to listen. My work is, I suppose, a social comentary of sorts.
If I could eek out a living from it, I would be happy, anything else is a bonus.
I look forward to the day when I can have the last laugh at she who nagged and started me on this long and precarious path. Oh, to be a fly on the wall the day she finds out I'm published and earning (evil laugh).
Revenge is not the right motive I know, but it is sweet, and when the going gets tough, there is no better motivation.
Milhouse.
Of course I'd like to get novels published, but in the meantime I'll keep doing other things that will get read.
Needless to say,I never went. And as I grew up I learned the truth; there's no such word. As it turns out, I have an IQ of 156 - not bad for a divvy.
So, I suppose, in a way getting published is also my way of proving them all wrong, which I will do.
Milhouse.
The fame and fortune would be nice, but are incidental.
I would like to make a living from my writing, but realise how hard that is, and will settle for publication, and being able to tell people I'm a writer of.... you get the picture. ("Ooh, have you had anything published?" is not a question I encounter frequently, thankfully, but it has happened, and will no doubt happen again.)
To be as well recognised as, say, Michèle Roberts would be great. (Who said "Who's she?" Grrr!)
I want to make a living out of writing so I can spend all my time doing just that!
I would like to be as popular as Stephen King, as scary as James Herbet and as creepy as Dean Koontz for writing the same kind of things...
To be the first writer to get a £5m advance for a first novel.
To win the booker prize with same novel.
To sell film rights, write screenplay and direct; oscars for best screenplay and best director.
To be acclaimed as the guy who made writing the new rock and roll.
To be briefly disgraced when photograped snorting coke from Kate Moss's naked body while being orally pleasured by Kylie.
To overcome this small obstacle and win the Nobel prize for literature.
To turn down a knighthood.
To get in a drunken fight with Chuck Pahlanuik and beat him senseless, shouting "How's THAT for fight club, chuckie-boy?" Preferably at a televised awards ceremony.
To serve a short term in prison.
To die prematurely in some bizarre but cool way.
To be regarded forever more as the James Dean of words.
You have to set your sights high!
PS Paul Bettany will play me in the movie of my life.
Writers exist in a world of dreams - why shouldn't mine be grand?
Live your dream Mike, and never let any one take them away.
Milhouse.
I am also busy promoting my website because my aim is to write at least two e-books which people can download from my site.
Keep dreaming Mike. You could also make a wish board and stick pictures of your dreams on there. You will get there. I find if I write down my goals and review them constantly they do come true.
Mike, statement number 5 re: Kylie. This confused me a little. Does that mean you want her to read you a story?
So what would you choose: fame or fortune? Or neither?
Secretly want to see a book I have written in bookshops - no pic of me on back cover though.
As for fame, I would rather be known for academic research than as a celebrity author.
I'm quite contented right now. I have dreamt of going to University since I was 13, and teachers classed me as a 'struggler': leaving with three A-level grades of one D and two n's. Now I have proved them wrong.
I would be quite happy to have a day job to support my writing.
My aim in writing my books is as follows...
I am definitely not interested in being famous. I would hate losing my anonymity in the street etc. I would not want the gutter press watching my every move and investigating my sex-life. The whole caboodle seems like a total nightmare to me.
I am not motivated by making money, though its lovely to get book orders, because that proves that people want to read what I have written.
It's nice to see the online bank account grow, but it's just numbers on a screen that tell me that I have enough to print my next book. I made this rule that my little publishing business must be entirely self-supporting, and it always has been, though 13 books now. I don't need to make a living from writing as I have income from elsewhere.
I love getting good reviews. To submit your work to people with PhDs and the like who have read thousands of books written by eminent experts is really, really scary. You know they are casting a critical eye and you do feel a bit trembly and sick in the stomach as you search though the publication looking for the review.
When it is favourable I always weep (silly old cow). I think it is partly through relief, and partly because I am so happy that my humble offerings have "passed muster" with those I consider as high above me in knowledge and intelligence.
Regarding seeing your book in the bookshops, the first time I was jsut overwhelmed with happiness, and also a bit shy and self-conscious. However, what has happened over the years, rather sadly I think, is that I feel absolutely nothing, zilch, nowt, when I see my books on the bookshop shelves. I miss that old thrill I used to get. R.I.P. The last thrill of pleasure I got was in the Women's Library in Whitechapel. While there on another matter I checked that they had a copy of my book in stock and it was not on the shelves. On my way to the desk to remedy this I saw it on a special display stand, on a bookstand, upright, with a big sign next to it saying: Book of the Month. I just beamed. Of course, none of the many readers sitting around knew it was me, or I would have gone rather red I think.
My basic aims are: I want to contribute to women's history. I want to tell the untold stories. I want to celebrate the achievements of women who have largely been forgotten, whose names are buried in the veil of history.
I want people to know how ordinary local working class women lived in the Victorian period. Much of what I do is revisionary: I would not have needed to do it if we'd been taught women's history at school, or if women's lives had not been buried underneath those of men.
I want councils and English Heritage and others who run Blue Plaque schemes to know the names of women who should perhaps be honoured (about 90% of Blue Plaques are for men).
I want to surprise people, because they have been told that women didn't do much except stay at home and have babies, until the 20th century. This simply isn't true.
I want to tell the story of women's emancipation, of women's struggle for educational, legal, social and employmental equality with men.
I want to tell the story of those who struggled against sex-prejudice and endless obstacles and barriers to become the first women in their profession.
I want to produce work that I am proud of, and I want to feel that I have contributed something to women, to history, to culture, to the world. I don't think I could do that working on the till at Tesco's.
Helena
i would just like to see something i had written in a shop and be able to pick it up look at the cover and be thrown out for vandalism!
If any Talkbackers have had this experience and would like to share any aspects of it with me in total confidence, please contact me via Webbo.
Luv Kaz
P.S. Careful what we wish for, eh Mike?
I'm pretty sure this isn't a normal reaction though.
The point is that when men go to prison, you often find that the family unit stays together, but when women get separated from their kids - well it's a different story. I know I'm generalising and I've probably watched too much Bad Girls for my own good, but I'd love to know more about what these women go through.
Luv Kaz
That hasn't worked out (by a long shot!).
It's more like "pay for a trip every 3 years".
My aim today is to find out ways to crack the better-paying markets consistently and earn enough for that trip every year. But I am probably still being unrealistic.
ON top of this, now I'm trying to write a novel... which takes away from the time needed to write and sell those articles... so I am probably going to be further off my goal then ever.
My aim is to see with my own eyes people reading my book and to enjoy the anonimity that they don't realise they are so close to the author.
Actually, just getting published would do it for me!
Luv to all.
Kaz