[Polls, Writing]
[polls|writing] A bit more on the age of first publication poll
With 103 respondents, the curve stays fairly similar to its earlier version [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]. There is certainly a polling artefact in place due my imprecision in crafting the question — judging from comments, some people cited their first appearance in a school paper etc., others cited their first professional publication.
At the same time, I suspect even with a much better crafted survey instrument we’d see a similar, if perhaps less dramatic curve. I’ll generalize thusly: some people come to writing with enough raw talent to begin publishing early, and then grow into their craft. Those are the writers who started young. Some people (myself included) have to serve their decade+ of apprenticeship and write their million+ bad words, which explains the 31-35 bump.
There’s no defensible methodology here, it’s an amateur Internet survey with a self-selected response pool, but I still find this most interesting. Per a suggestion from
Your thoughts? Other ways to look at this?
Posted: 5:05 pm Mon March 09 2009 |
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