Should You Publish?

From Ink & Stone (not to be confused with the local bookstore!)

Over at Crusiemayer.com, authors Jenny Crusie and Bob Mayer give their advice on publishing.

• She Wrote: Publishing
• He Wrote Back: Publishing

Personally, I like more what Jenny Crusie wrote. There's a lot of quotable quotes there but without resorting to in-jokes, here's two good paragraphs:

If God, the real God, the real thing, came down to day and said to you, “You will never be published,” would you quit writing? Remember, this is God, so there’s no escape clause; in this scenario you truly never will be published.

If you’d keep writing, then there’s no point in whining about it, you’re stuck. You’re a writer. If you’re smart, you’ll be Emily Dickinson and lead a happy, stress free life hiding in your dining room. But if you’re like most people, say Bob and me, you won’t be smart and you’ll go for it anyway. Which is what the next umpteen weeks is about, giving you the basics of how the industry works. But I’m telling you now, it won’t help you much. Once you’re published, you’re on the train and you are not driving.