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Miriam Herin, Author
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  • Meet Miriam
  • A Stone for Bread
  • Absolution
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  • Short Stories
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So You Want to be a Writer

 

“If you are going to be a writer there is nothing I can say to stop you; if you’re not going to be a writer nothing I can say will help you. What you really need at the beginning is somebody to let you know that the effort is real.”  James Baldwin 

 

I was recently asked what advice I would give to someone who wanted to be a writer. My first response was this: have people in your life who love you even if you’re unsuccessful. But for those of us who’ve already chosen this vocation, Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride offers excellent advice: “Get used to disappointment.”

The truth is, I would prefer to give NO advice to those wanting to write. Why? Because as James Baldwin said, if you’re going to write, you will. You’ll fight through the obstacles of finding undisturbed time, deal with skeptical friends and family members and stubbornly keep at it despite rejection, self-doubt and failure.

These days, I seldom encourage anyone to be a writer, no matter how talented, at least those who want to write professionally and publish. As a writer friend noted recently, a query to an agent has a 1 in 2000 chance of obtaining that agent’s representation. And this is before a manuscript even reaches a publisher!

It took me years to get my first novel published (I basically quit writing a number of those years!). And while we are in the process of creating “the great American novel,” we receive no income from this. The hard truth is that few published writers, even writers who have done well, earn an actual living wage from their published works. That’s why many authors take positions as writers in residence at colleges and universities or teach workshops, do professional editing and critiquing or have some other day job.

This isn’t a vocation for the faint-hearted or those who don’t deal well with delayed gratification.

As writer James Baldwin recognized in the above quote, the choice to write belongs to the writer alone. But along the way, beginners need more established writers to recognize potential when they see it, or as Baldwin says, to affirm that their “effort is real.” Those of us who have taken this difficult and often frustrating road can at least offer that.

 

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A Stone for Bread by Miriam Herin

Recent Posts
  • On May 11, 2020, Miriam’s second novel A Stone for Bread won the 2020 Eric Hoffer competition Legacy Award, which placed the novel on the short list for the Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize. Prior to publication, the Stone for Bread manuscript was a top-ten finalist in the 2014 International Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Novel Competition. In 2016, it was nominated for North Carolina’s prestigious Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction. Published by Livingston Press of the University of West Alabama, the novel received a starred Kirkus review through the Kirkus Indy program and was cited by Kirkus as an Indy Best book of the year for 2016. It was a 2017 Finalist in the International Book Awards, Literary Fiction category.
    February 21, 2022
  • Coming Soon: THE BASILISK, a novel of 12th Century France
    February 21, 2022
  • Coming Soon, Miriam’s medieval novel THE BASILISK
    February 17, 2022
  • 1. Lucky, The Backstory: A Grassy Field and a Basketball Goal
    April 9, 2019
My Readers Say

With a sharp eye for detail, Herin weaves a riveting and compassionate narrative out of lifelines that have echoed across the decades and become part of my own.

L.C. Fiore

This is a supremely ambitious book from a thoroughly gifted writer.

Joseph Bathanti

But here’s the main thing I have to tell you: A Stone For Bread is an irresistible page-turner.

Judy Goldman
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