For every one of you that have taken short cuts (and somehow still made it), I think there are 100 people out there like John Erickson.
In fact, my sense is that very few people make it by taking the “easy” route.
People just start at different times.
I mean, one can easily start voice lessons at the age of four, and not make it into a full-time singing career, until age 24.
Most don’t make it. And that’s 20 years of work!
Honestly, it feels like my career arc is headed in this same direction…
By the year 1982, I had served a long apprenticeship as a writer. I hadn’t cheated or taken short cuts. I had been writing four and a half hours every day, seven days a week, for fifteen years. I had collected at least one thousand rejection slips and was ready for someone in the publishing community to give me a chance to practice my craft. When that opportunity didn’t come, I started my own publishing company in my garage.
-John Erickson, Story Craft (Amazon)