Why would a law professor write fiction? Scott Douglas Gerber (Ohio Northern) answers that question in the National Jurist here (free registration required; sorry). Here's the kernel of his advice:
For those of us who don’t teach at Yale, Stanford, Penn and the like, it’s much more difficult to get fiction published than it is nonfiction. Like it or not, those of us toiling in the hinterlands have a tougher time getting the attention of New York literary agents and publishing houses. But, as a novelist friend once reminded me during one of my many moments of frustration about how the publishing industry really works, if you write fiction because you enjoy is – nothing more, nothing less – you will never regret that you do.
"Write because you enjoy it" is a good maxim, but what about those for whom writing -- even non-fiction -- is painful and difficult? "Enjoy it because you have to do it" may be more apropos.
As for me, I'm squarely in the "I hate to write; I love having written" camp. Incidentally, does anyone have a cite for that quote? I've seen it attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, Eudora Welty, Dorothy Parker, and others.
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