Are you a teenager? A busy twenty-something? A harassed housewife – or husband? A pensioner with time to spare? Perhaps you are wondering how you could fit in a serious attempt at writing. Don’t despair. There are many ways of combining a writing career with regular paid work.
I don’t mean to aim at college students in this section, because the best way of getting published for them is by way of a degree in journalism. Young people with a talent for writing fiction generally feel the need to use it. There is little similarity between a young person’s writing and that of an adult who has picked up thousands of ideas and tricks of writing along the way. The work of someone under twenty-five, however, has a freshness that doesn’t last.
There is far more support for young aspiring authors today than there was a decade back, but the chances of getting fiction published are slighter than ever. To offset this, there are opportunities for publishing online, and most of the vanity publishers have disappeared or turned respectable. They have re-emerged among the print-on-demand and subsidy houses.
It is possible to study ‘Creative Writing’ at someuniversities and accepted summer schools, where much depends on the tutor. Great to be tutored by the likes of David Rice, Frank McCourt or Roddy Doyle, but qualifications for teaching writing as a career are founded on academic success as much as the ability to pass it on. As in almost every branch oftuition, naturally talented teachers often inspire their students to open up and forget their inhibitions, while others, as well, or better qualified, overawe their pupils, making them self-conscious about showing their work to the great man or woman. Or they may play safe by writing exactly as instructed,nervously keeping their gifts out of sight.
All these options are aimed at full-time employment and a career in writing. I mention them so as to give a general idea of what is on offer. Now I want to consider lesspermanent options.
The other thing to emphasize is the fact that it’s seldom too late to start. There is so much support for young people who want to write, so little for the elderly. I was onceinterviewed for the post of Writer in Residence in Portlaoise. I didn’t get the job and I was told that the main reason was that I was reluctant to work with the prison inmates, suggesting instead writing sessions for retired people and those living in nursing homes.
In most retirement homes, elderly people would love to be visited by authors and perhaps take classes in short-storywriting. I was born in 1930 and have edited for people of my own age group, who have been delighted with their new skill. Then there are the Active Retirement groups. For anyone retired and bored, writing could be something to try out for fun, then taken up seriously if the person developed a latent talent.
The basics
Bernard Shaw, on one of the rare occasions when he was forced to address students, asked what they thought was most essential to become a writer. A brave soul at the back suggested a pencil. Shaw’s reply is not on record. Probably it was scathing. He once stated grandly, ‘I was born a writer’.
The student had a point. A biro will do to start with
