The Year of the Realistic Writer

This year might well be the year that Waterstone’s sticks in the minds of aspiring writers. Firstly, the book chain (now owned by HMV) has announced a series of events to celebrate writing. Not unusual, you might think, coming from a bookseller, but these events are aimed primarily at the unpublished.

According to details released on the Bookseller.com (yes, I know, I’ve plundered their website twice in as many blog entries, but relevant news from the site is like public transport…) the whole “Writer’s Year” thing kicks off with a guide on getting published (which will feature on Waterstone’s very own website), through to various local promotions, and one author (tba) will be giving the low down on books that inspired them to write. There’s probably more to it than that, but after all, there’s a whole year to fill, and I’m curious to see how they intend to do it.

The second reason for another little celebration is that 2008 marks the 10th anniversary of a revelatory book also published by Waterstone’s. It’s a book that both dashed my presumptions of being rich and famous (hell, I was only 23 years old), but it also reinforced my commitment to the writing itself.
The Cost of Letters - subtitled "How much do you think a writer needs to live on?" - was first published in May1998 and has been mentioned on this blog before, but in May this year I want to raise the same six questions as asked by Cyril Connolly in 1946, this time with the Macmillan New Writer’s group and anyone else who cares to throw their two-pennith into the debate about how to earn a living from writing.

As new writers I’m sure our responses will be quite different to those who took part in 1948, and indeed in 1998. But I think the general aim will be the same, to shatter some misconceptions, but not the dreams that go with them.