I Don't Know

Exeter is a small New England town that I have come to love for a number of reasons. There's the beautiful old New England buildings downtown and out around town. The Exeter river begins as fresh water at one end of town and runs into tidal salt water, and both are teeming with life, so many birds and fish. In fact, the ale wives are running now so the lobster men are standing on String Bridge or down in the water with their nets hauling these medium size fish in to use as bait.

And then there is Water Street Books, a wonderful and vibrant independent book store in the middle of town. Then Philips Exeter Academy, home to folks such as John Irving, Donald Hall, and others. In fact, Donald Hall has made regular appearances in town and I managed to strike up a brief conversation on writing via letters with him. One time, I stood in line and chatted with Dan Brown as we waited for a sandwich at a deli. And then there is Maggie, our state's governor and friend to an astonishing number of people.

Exeter is a mix of people doing a mix of things in a mix of ways with a mix of creativity, drive, desire and needs. And yet, within all of these people moving in all of their directions, we are a community, an organism, and it is an organism of people seeking multiple paths to happiness.

Therefore, I've become dismayed by the number of slick websites advertising businesses promising to get you published with simple, easy steps. They are heavy on the marketing a la Tony Robbins and light on specifics and the kind of advice that is going to guide a writer. They have products, which unlike my site where I offer t-shirts and tools that I believe will help you, their products are of their own creation that promise to shed a wide beam of light on the secrets and mysteries of writing and getting published only to provide cliche truths you could find elsewhere for free.

Often, their websites seem to be made by the same company and are heavy on cross-branding elements that any MBA student or person who's done a lot of business writing would recognize. In fact, their message, design, layout, branding, language, etc. come from the Tony Robbins playbook used by all manner of money-focused pitchperson.

The truth is, writing and getting published is harder than they make it out to be. They say anyone can get published which is a verifiable truth in an age of digital/online publishing. However, finding an agent and being published by a mainstream publisher where you get the thrill of seeing your book prominently displayed at Water Street Books here in Exeter is a challenging and difficult thing to do that requires a lot of discipline and willingness to hear a lot of conflicting truths from a number of sources and then decide which one is right for you.

As in Exeter, those of us who see writing as an art and calling are a community made up of many different people doing many different things in many different ways for many different reasons. All of this energy and dedication is directed to a single hope, to find our version of happiness as a writer. However, as any writer will tell you, true writing happiness is always a bittersweet thing because it will be accompanied by a lot of rejection and challenges to our self-esteem.

No one can take the pains away, and no one should. They are part of the beauty of the writer's life.

So whether you believe I can help you or not, look for someone wiling to make you do the work, but who will guide you so you can avoid common mistakes and who will educate you on those pieces of good, excellent and godly writing they do know so you can take them with you and make them your own.