For the sake of this discussion, let’s imagine that there are two types of writer-people in the United States. There are authors, which we will define as people who write books of some sort and work to publish them. Then there are aspiring authors, or people who want to write books but have not yet finished one. We’ll ignore all the in-between stages and other types of writers.
Imagine creating a grid with those writer-people types on the y-axis. On the x-axis, you put two columns: formal writing support and self-sufficient. The formal writing support category is the percentage of that group (author or aspiring author) that attends/attended writing workshops, writer groups, writing conferences, etc. for education or self-help. For authors, we’ll think of that category as those who attended during their aspiring authors phase, not necessarily after they became authors. The self-sufficient category is the percentage of that group that does/did not attend those activities and events. Having created these axes, fill in the grid with percentages.
If you’ve done it right, you should now have a grid of numbers that relate to each other. For example, if 10% of authors got formal writing support during their aspiring author phase, then the cell at the intersection of authors and formal writing support will have a value of 10%. That means that the value of the cell at the intersection of authors and self-sufficient must be 90%. Clear as mud?
True or false: the value in the cell that is aspiring authors by formal writing support is much bigger than the value in the cell that is authors by formal writing support.
In my life, I kinda know two authors and know one aspiring author. The two authors write books. The aspiring author talks about writing books but doesn’t write books. The latter belongs to groups, participates in workshops, etc., and I don’t think the former ever did.
I have no interest in writers’ workshops and the like, but also don’t want to be foolish about this craft. Is the small sample of people in my life indicative of reality? What is the real value in formal writing support activities (maybe finding beta readers)? Are the people who attend these activities in the author category or the aspiring author category, and if the latter, how would that help you?