Did big-name authors succeed just because they debuted early? No. Utsudo was annoyed to see someone claim top authors only “got there first.” Consistently producing works is already rare and valuable, and every published book has passed a publisher’s commercial evaluation. The creative environment is getting tougher, but if you keep producing and accumulating, you have a chance. If the mountain won’t move, find another road—look for a way instead of an excuse.

Translated from Utsudo’s original Chinese column.

“Big-name authors just got there first”?

This happened in a fiction group I recently joined.

I happened to see someone say something like, “Those so-called big-name authors just got there earlier. Their writing isn’t even that good.” It really rubbed me the wrong way.

It seemed to attribute their success entirely to “getting there early.” But anyone who writes knows how hard it is to produce one work after another. Producing steadily without stopping is already rare and precious—how many people in the world can do it? Dismissing it in one sentence really annoyed me.

Keep producing, and you’ll have a chance

Frankly, the creative environment really is getting tougher. But as long as you keep producing works, every one of you has a real chance to rise through accumulation. Don’t actually believe that “getting there early” is everything—that’s just an excuse for settling.

We can’t change the environment, but we can strengthen our resolve. Even if the environment were great now, you’d still need to produce works first to have a chance—and vice versa.

If the mountain won’t move, find another road

If the mountain won’t move, find another road—that’s an unchanging truth. As long as you have a direction you’re determined to go, no matter how far or winding, it’s not a problem.

I’m a good example. I don’t have any outstanding achievements or major awards, but along the way I’ve dealt with more than twenty publishers in Taiwan and abroad. It sounds impressive, but it’s just the result of refusing to give up.

My creative path has never been smooth; I’ve stumbled and figured things out on my own the whole way.

If someone as ordinary as me can do it, of course you can too.

A published work has been evaluated

As for whether a work is good, I think that’s subjective. But given such a biased remark, I suspect there’s a good chance he only glanced at their work before deciding it was “not that good” XD

After all, whether a work gets published is evaluated by businesspeople (publishers). What businessperson wants to do business that’s bound to lose money?

Of course, more famous authors may face a lower publishing threshold, but that’s the result of what they’ve built over time. Even if a work really is “not that good,” it’s at least been judged overall as worth publishing. Experts don’t score 100 on everything—they score at least 80 on everything.

Don’t miss the point. Of course everyone wants to be popular, but the thinking behind such an immature remark is what’s truly doomed to fail.

Let’s encourage each other.

FAQ

Further reading

• Previous: Hey! I Heard You’re a Writer on Ghost Island #157: Editors Come in SSR Too?!
• Start from the beginning: Hey! I Heard You’re a Writer on Ghost Island #01: Utsudo’s Debut — A Road to the Dream Covered in Frost
• Utsudo’s books

About the author

Utsudo is a Taiwanese light novelist and novelist VTuber with more than ten years in the industry and 40 commercially published print books. Her novel 《遺失的情書》 received a 2022 Ministry of Culture youth creative award. The 《嘿！聽說妳在鬼島當作家》 series records her experiences as a novelist in Taiwan.