There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.' In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things - read and write - and wait.
quote by Countee Cullen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Most Writers
Most writers 'twould seem have moments of self doubt
But they never go short of things to write about
And to become a top writer of one a big ask
And to succeed as a writer for many seems too daunting a task.
Most writers do not write for wealth or for fame
And despite lack of success they pen on just the same
For every one hundred thousand writers perhaps one writing millionaire
Amongst the ranks of the wealthy the writers are rare.
Few writers can hope for to scale success height
For the love of writing they only do write
Few writers get published and fewer know of success
But in their writings on paper their thoughts they express.
Most writers will never know wealth and renown
And they are not even well known in their own Hometown
They never will be known beyond their home shore
They write for the love of it and little more.
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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On My Worth As A Writer
On my worth as a writer I do cast great doubt
Though one could never run out of things to write about
And poetasters are many and poets they are rare
Yet so much to write on of the big World out there
One can say I've written a whole heap of stuff
Yet out of millions of writers few are good enough
To make a success out of the wordsmith trade
So many there are and so few make the grade
Not many writers the literary critics impress
And so few out of writing become a success
For every literary success of which we do read
So many are destined to never succeed
And only a tiny minority do make writing pay
But then such is life as some are known to say.
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Paperback Writer
(LennonMcCartney)
Paperback writer
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
It's based on a novel by a man named Lear
And I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer
It's the dirty story of a dirty man
And his clinging wife doesn't understand
His son is working for the Daily Mail
It's a steady job but he wants to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer
Paperback writer
It's a thousand pages, give or take a few
I'll be writing more in a week or two
I can make it longer if you like the style
I can change it round and I want to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer
If you really like it you can have the rights
It could make a million for you overnight
If you must return it, you can send it here
But I need a break and I want to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer
Paperback writer
Paperback writer, paperback writer
Paperback writer, paperback writer
Paperback writer, paperback writer
Paperback writer, paperback writer (fade out)
song performed by by Paul McCartney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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All Day
Well Im hiding my eyes from the morning sun
And I keep on working till the work is all done
But a voice in my head keeps ticking away
As the sweats hosed down from yet another day
Well he works hard
And he lives hard
And he breaks his back without nothing to gain
While the boss man sits around and drinks champagne
All day (you work and you work and you work and)
In life, theres just one transition
All day (you work and you work and you work and)
In life, theres just one decision
Well Im peeling the blisters off my working hand
Is that what it takes to make you understand?
That its something you read, not something you meant
To be slaving away without a shred of integrity
He worked hard
And he lived hard
And he broke his back without nothing to say
While the man in control was just laughing away
All day (you work and you work and you work and)
In life, theres just one transition
All day (you work and you work and you work and)
In life, theres just one decision
Was it something you read?
Was it something you meant?
Was it something you said?
Or was it heaven sent?
All day (you work and you work and you work and)
In life, theres just one transition
All day (you work and you work and you work and)
In life, theres just one decision
song performed by by Ministry
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Writer- a must?
Out of what does a writer write?
Out of hatred or perversion;
Out of denial or deprivation.
Why does a writer write?
To vent his anger or hatred.
To cry out from pain or lust.
How does a writer write?
By borrowing or distorting.
By modeling or duping.
For what does a writer write?
For an applause and a place.
It alone suits him, an idler.
What is the use of a writer?
For him to flaunt his skill.
For readers to idle away
Does the society need a writer?
Does a woman need cosmetics?
Writer is a part of civilization
16.05.2007.
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Remembering Bukowski.... Hope This Is Nothing New To You
So You Want To Be A Writer?
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.
don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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On What Is Success So Few Do Agree
On what is success so few do agree
The successful one to you may not be so to me
No two see things exactly the same as some like to say
We all look at life in a different way
Some people are not very hard to impress
They associate money and material things with success
Such as the value of your house and the value of your car
They never see you for the person you are,
The company you work for and your take home pay
Many look at success in this sort of a way
To them compassion and kindness to little amount
Though these things should be taken into account
When talking of success though it seems to me
That most of us look at things quite differently.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Succes! !
It’s not a goal you seek
It’s not about getting money
It’s not to stay negative
It’s not all about you but other around you too
It’s not the end but the beginning of your life
To realizing and learning is what your success is
To try and want to improve is what your success is
To accomplish things by your own is what your success
To give or share is what your success is
To respect and believing in you is what your success is
To challenge yourself is what your success is
To work hard to reach your dreams you once believe is what your success is
Success is sweet and…. I believe it’s waiting for you to own it and hold it with your life.
poem by Angie Alphonce
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All These Things
Sometimes I don’t feel who I am.
I don’t feel like what I write
because I don’t want to be pigeonholed
for just one thing I do.
I think myself as a whole
and not just one object.
I call myself a writer,
not a poet,
not a novelist,
neither a songwriter
nor a short story writer be.
I am a writer
because all those things
emulate from within me.
10 April 2009
poem by David Harris
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I Believe in Myself
I believe in God
I believe in myself regardless of what others say
I love myself
I believe in things that others would not believe
I am not insane, but intelligent
I know and feel in my heart that anything can be possible
I never give up even when it feels impossible
I will succeed
I will succeed
No one can take away my pride but me
I will succeed
I will succeed
Just you wait and see
poem by Alisha Ricks
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Faculty
Sometimes it seems so hard to work out the words,
and then again it seems not hard at all. Just write,
is as simple as that. There are times i can't seem to
work the words, other times the words come up
bubbling in my head with character and meaning.
At times i feel challenged by other writers, and i
begging to doubt my ability to work the words,
i simple read another writer and then i know i have
nothing to be worry about. I understand then that my
contest is with myself and not with other writers.
We all think about the same things, because once
in our life’s we all go through the same situations.
We all have the brain to create anything in our heads.
There’s nothing that i can't do if i focus and if i
don't focus; “you see” this word- focus is meaningful
in some ways, we need the focus, but in poetry we
need more the fantasy in our thoughts, the meaning
to our words, focusing can be important, but if your
head is not in the mood, there’s not going to be any
words bubbling up, even though you don’t need it so
much, because you can create a poem out of anything.
There’s one thing about writing, and reading poetry,
understanding the meaning behind the words.
Every word or phrase has a meaning behind, this is
where readers need to understand; for example-if i'm
drinking away my sorrows, it can mean, crying my
heart out, it can mean, i need to forget, it can mean,
a big hangover, it can mean, sleeping out in the porch,
it can mean, forgetting all you did last night; how many
things out of a phrase. Right know I would just like
to be in my cabin and sit right in front of the fire-place
with a bottle of wine and enjoy my pastoral life while
i write, amazing things.
poem by Elenushka Toledo
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If you want to succeed
If you want to succeed, go to college and get a degree.
Study hard and make good grades, that is the key.
Nothing spells success like a good education.
You can be a doctor or President of a corporation.
If you want to be a success, an education is what you'll need.
A person who is educated will be far more likely to succeed.
poem by Randy Johnson
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Aspirations To Be Met
Poetry is me.
I write about the struggles in life
and all my calamities.
The obstacles beset by and all of life's anxieties.
Or I may write of my success,
The fights fought and won,
How I would have raised my head above the water.
Things that I would have thought were stumbling blocks but turned into stepping stones.
I will write of how I became successful.
But I have a dream.
A dream that I will be able to write about the seemingly less important things in life.
Things that society did not stamp their stamp on as priority.
Like a ball, a tree, a toothbrush or even a bicycle-tyre.
To be able to write on the little things that add meaning to what it means to live.
These are things to be accomplished,
Visions to see,
Goals and aspirations to be met.
But I am a babe in the world of poetry.
I am like a kid who says-
'When I get big I want to be just like the poetic legends.'
I shake my head when I read the work of the professionals
Like Pablo Neruda, Maya Angelou and my favorite
Lawrence S. Pertillar.
I ask myself when will this be me?
But I have a vision
And I can see that I will graduate from being just a kid who writes to express herself freely
Into a Juggernaut of poetry.
The world will not be able to hide from my words.
They must hear me.
I foresee that my work will raise to the heights of the statue of liberty
And all of my sayings, all of my poems will shine just like that torch,
So radiantly.
poem by Apphia Garcia
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The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.
quote by Augusten Burroughs
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them - without a thought about publication - and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.
quote by Anne Tyler
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A writer
Out of what, does a writer write?
Out of hatred, out of denial,
Out of failure, out of perversion,
Out of insult or out of neglect.
Why does a writer write?
To vent his anger, anguish and agony.
To bend his feelings in catharsis.
From what does he write?
From borrowings, being inspired,
Or pouring old wine into a new bottle.
For what purpose does he write?
For an applause, to show his skills
And to earn a place and money.
Why at all must he write?
For an idler, what else can he do?
What lacks in one’s writing?
His concern for you lacks.
Your vow to pursue it lacks.
He writes and forgets
You read and forget.
When you are gone and when he is gone
The relevance to his writings is gone.
Bubbles are formed and burst.
12.04.2007
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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This Is Payment Price This Poet Pays
My friend is a salary man luckily gainfully employed
five days a week for eight hours a day he earns his pay.
I also for decades worked my days for weekly monthly pay.
I studied hard put in extra time to fully earn my worker pay,
years sped by I worked and worked to earn hard earned pay,
now for a time a time and a half I do not work this way.
I write I write each day by day or through long night.
I work far harder than I did employed in salary fight.
I live on savings hard earned to earn a right to write.
I charge not chance reader read or read not just as you like.
I work I sacrifice to give gift of love as free as stars above.
I give in time in thought in words in wisdom I give in love.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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'Made it as a writer'? I'm still wondering if I've made it as a writer. I've made it as a published writer of the type of SF that I want to write and read, but I'm still waiting for that big breakthrough.
quote by Eric Brown
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Secrete To Success
Success is defined as surviving failures and learning from them.
Success has a secrete and
Unless a man undertakes more than he possible can do
He’ll never do all that he can.
Success has a secrete and
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Success has a secrete and
You always go through failures on the way to success
Maybe it does secrete of success.
It is possible to fail in many ways,
Just polish them with ignorance.
Whiles possible to succeed in other ways
Just stamp with confidence
Then success is short.
Take steps to success;
Plan while others are playing,
Study while others are delaying,
Begin while others are procrastinating,
Work while others are wishing,
Listen while others are talking,
Smile while others are frowning,
Commend while others are criticizing,
Persist while others are quitting.
You’ll be lucrative in your success,
If you follow this secretes of success.
You are not old,
To be unsuccessful,
Don’t go where there is excitement,
Thus with-holds your succeeding journey,
Stay where there is love,
Thus you open all of you to it.
This is a secretive secrete of success,
IF ITS NOT! !
THERE’S NOTHING EXITING TO BE THE SECRETE OF SUCCESS
I won’t tell you the author, cause he is a secrete successor.
poem by Stephen Raseona
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I Would Like It Better If
If I wrote to be liked,
I would not be read.
And I do like that some read,
What I write!
But I would like it better,
If I was fed...
By what it is I've said that is written...
And read by those who read what I wrote!
Finding a nibble to afford,
Liked And nourishes...
To feed the reader something read,
Coming from this writer's head!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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