Surviving the Writing Life by Deren Hansen
(Warning: this is going to be a short review)
The one misconception people seem to have about artists is that there’s a set time frame for every step or stepping stone. Simply put, they think that their path is going to get hard for a small period of time. And even a novice like me knows that’s a load of rubbish. I would like to be well-known for my work – not famous (God no!) – and get to a place where my work can help the future generation of writers.
Deren Hansen wrote this book to demystify the illusions of the pavement of writing so you better prepare yourself for the grind that’s ahead of you. The topics revolve around how to handle the rigors in writing for money and to expect. Personally, I like this because I don’t like being caught off guard. Haha!
This was another book that had my writing in my journal because when I’m creating work for others, or collaborating, I need to make sure that money can be made around every project. But the main lesson I gathered from it is one: Never Be Static!!! Makes sense, really, static means you’re content and you should never be content.
This book gets a B. Informative but really REALLY short for a topic like this.
