The Writer's Bill of Rights

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THE WRITER’S BILL OF RIGHTS

by Robert Dawson

2013

* * *

You are allowed not to be the greatest writer in the world.

You are allowed not to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Pulitzer, or even that flash contest in your local newspaper

You are allowed to have a day job at which you spend more time than at writing, and that you may be unwilling or unable to give up.

You are allowed to have a family who need and deserve large quantities of your time.

You are allowed to write stories that are not as good as the best thing you ever wrote.

You are allowed to have dry spells. For as long as it takes.

You are allowed to sell stories to $10 markets. As Leonard Cohen puts it:

“I took my diamond to a pawnshop / But that don’t make it junk.”

You are allowed to have a lifestyle that won’t let you get to national workshops, or even your two-bit local convention.

You are allowed to have stories that haven’t sold at all yet—and may never sell.

You are allowed to not be [insert name here].

And you will still be a writer.

And that’s good.

Because otherwise there would be damned few of us left.