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Faking Contact

It is a truism that if you're famous you’ll have no trouble publishing a book.  For instance, I’m currently reading Contact by Carl Sagan.  I’ve seen the movie, and in a moment of not having anything new on my fiction shelf, I went back to Contact, which I had started years ago.

Not all books are thrill rides, of course.  I’m not really a thriller fan, but there’s a je ne sas quoi about most literary novels that keeps you coming back.  In Contact, it’s clear that the author is a scientist.

Not that one has to be a literary professional to become a writer.  I think of Michael Critchton, who wrote several bestsellers, despite being a medical doctor by profession.  I often wonder how people like that get started.

I’m not a literary professional either.  I have, however, finished six novels and had very little success getting any interest built in them.  I wrote Passion of the Titans when Clash of the Titans had been announced but before it was released.  It had a natural tie-in to the movie.  Now the moment is long passed.  If I’d been famous it might have been different.

The internet has created more writers.  Or at least, it has created more opportunities for writers with the willingness to publish in unconventional ways.  With the exception of one story, all of my fiction has been published only online.  There seems to be a print barrier when someone has to commit to printing costs.

Believing in yourself is increasingly a requirement for a writer.  Those of us who’ve read of the personal struggles of great writers, self-doubting introspectionists that so many of them were, easily see that a great deal has changed.


I’m constantly reading that print culture is dying.  I don’t believe it.  It is struggling, no doubt, but the struggle seems to be this: fewer people read for entertainment.  Too many other, easier options are out there.  Those of us who write are trying to save the world.  So we continue the struggle, even—especially—when we get no recognition.


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