The Voice and Being Ignored

I’ve been watching The Voice. It’s another singing context patterned after American Idol, but it’s better, I think. I quit watching American Idol a few years ago. But it isn’t my intent go into why it is better, rather I want to look at one of the differences in comparison to writing. On The Voice, people don’t get on the show by acting silly and you don’t see great crowds gathered in stadiums, hoping to convince the producers to let them appear before the judges. The people who appear on The Voice are already proven artists, but they haven’t had their big shot. From the good, the coaches select those who are better, with the hope that they will find the best of the best. Then they coach these performers to be even better.

When we look at writing, I believe many authors are looking for something like that. What they really want is for someone to take them under their wing and say, “here’s what you need to do to become a published author.” Unfortunately, the publishing industry isn’t like that. Some literary agents try to do that, but I don’t know of any literary agents who are great authors. Many of them write, and have books available, but they aren’t known for their writing.

Personally, I’m not looking for someone to turn me in to a bestselling author. But I feel for those author who are. They put their stories out there. Rejection comes and they say, “If you would just read it, you would see it is worth publishing.” The agents and publishers hear them, but they ignore them. Nothing hurts more than being ignored.

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