Genre writing

"a wonderfully gifted writer who wasted his talents churning out dime store novels. i can only assume he did it for the money. great books for long plane trips though. zero plot but amusing characters and dialogue. brain power not required to read this stuff."

The above comment was posted on an article in The Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10255072/Elmore-Leonard-the-writers-thriller-writer.html

Should wonderfully gifted writers use their talents to make money at the cost of art? Do they contribute to the upsurge in self-published authors by making writing look ridiculously simple -- as do all greatly talented individuals who work harder and longer than their rivals and thus make it look simple.

Ever tried picking up a tennis racket and soon realised that it isn't as easy as it looks? Elmore Leonard worked hard at his craft so that thousands of readers could read his books in a matter of hours. Quite a skill.

8/21/2013

                          Shelagh..

                                     He was a very interesting writer...I have a friend who keeps telling
                     me to write about Sanat Fe, I found out there are too many books on it. I like
                     to write about many different subjects, I'm still looking for that one subject
                     that would grab the public ?

                                                                      Cheers..Joe...

I am reading a true "author's book" now - a book written by the author that displays her talent, not the marketplace.  What a beautiful book.  Every sentence is a treasure.  She is also a poet.  I'm away from the book at the moment, but I will share it.

I picked it up at Dollar Tree for $1.  I often find older copyright date remainders from great writers by scanning their books each time I go to the store.  I still like the feel of a hardback book.  I have read wonderful books by Amy Tan and others that way.

The book I am enjoying is The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels.  She writes in poetic prose and disobeys every rule of today's writing guidebooks for popular authors.  She also wrote Fugitive Pieces that was made into a movie.

She writes what she thinks and feels.  Beautiful.

"brain power not required to read this stuff."

Good thing brain power isn't required, or the imbecile who wrote that couldn't have finished the book.

I used to read writer forums on LinkedIn and stopped due to the waste of time they were. Too many commenters like that one, stupid and pretentious, nothing to do and all day to do it, so they write dumb shit and link to even dumber shit. Oh well. Ya gets what ya pays for.

Elmore Leonard wrote entertaining books that are as interesting as most on the market. And he made a lot of money. Can the person who wrote the article in The Telegraph say the same?

The writer of the article was very complimentary about Elmore Leonard's writing. It was the comment on the article that was quoted in my opening post.

Avery had touched her nowhere but her wrist, where the small veins gather.  She felt the pressure move along her arm, his fingertips still touching only an inch of her, and she decided. And she knew for the first time that someone can wire your skin in a single evening, and that love arrives not by accumulating to a moment, like a drop of water focused on the tip of a branch - it is not the moment of bringing your whole life to another - but rather, it is everything you leave behind.  At that moment. - Anne Michaels

Such a different and imaginative way to describe that first moment defined as "love."  I am very much enjoying her book and all its violations of the rules to marketing prosperity.

The way I approach something for the money and the way I approach something for the art are exactly the same.  If I don't have as much faith in the money one, I still put 110% effort into it, even if it's not an artistic statement of value.  It doesn't matter, if I don't put in that amount of effort into it, I won't be challenged, nor will I be satisfied with the results.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who thinks this way, and I can guess that even if it's just for the money, many put in everything they have into whatever they are doing.  I mean, look at actors like Max Von Sydow.  He's been in plenty of bad movies, and yet I've never seen him phone in a performance.

Shelagh wrote:

Elmore Leonard worked hard at his craft ...

The effort put into the writing was not in question. It was using a talent to write for a wide audience rather than writing for a niche market that was being questioned by the person who posted the comment on the Telegraph article.

Put more simply, he wrote genre fiction (composed popular music) not literary fiction (classical music).

A colleague of mine knew him.  He spoke with him shortly before he died.  My friend said he always answered his own phone as it was in the office where he was always writing. 

One thing for certain, he had it down that writing is work - sitting there and doing it every day.  However, it was work that he loved.