Carrie
The story of misfit high-school girl, Carrie White, who gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers. Repressed by a domineering, ultra-religious mother and tormented by her peers at school, her efforts to fit in lead to a dramatic confrontation during the senior prom. )
Stats for nerds
0recommend
8mentions
8people
2009–2026years
88% neutral13% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Based on my experience it's more about being able to recognize an opportunity when it shows up and being good enough at your craft to take it. But no one can tell you what that chance will look like. Maybe it's a smart question to the right person during a hackathon, or maybe it's being really into graph theory and applying to a small newcomer company called Google.
For a concrete example: in his book "On writing" Stephen King details his life up until the point he hit it big with "Carrie". You could say he was lucky for the book to sell as good as it did, but that would require ignoring that he had been writing (and getting rejected!) non-stop for roughly 20 years.
- > Nobody else got to fail as much as Jobs and kept getting free passes though
Stephen King had his first book Carrie rejected 30 times.
The author of Dr Seuss had his first book rejected by 27 different publishers.
Walt Disney was fired from one of his first animation jobs.
Everyone fails. Not everyone gives up.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill_as_writer#Wr...
Stephen King began writing Carrie, his first published novel, when he was working as a janitor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_(novel)#Publication_his... (although by the time it was actually published, he was a high-school teacher).
- Stephen King definitely has a chance, not particularly for his craft, but his memorable characters. Carrie, It, Christine, Annie Wilkes, and Jack Torrance to name a few. Granted, movies will definitely help his longevity.
- Seconding this; this story is a watered-down version of the real story. If you don't want to dedicate the time to reading On Writing, King also references this story nicely in the introduction to most recent versions of Carrie.
- Great insights and lots of lessons for both investors and entrepreneurs. Especially the one about the best ideas looking like bad ideas initially. This should give pause to all aspiring entrepreneurs, and keep them moving towards their vision if they are convinced, even if everyone else thinks their idea will never work. In fact one could almost say that it is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for an idea to be the next big thing is for it to be considered bad or crazy initially by most people. Reminds me of Neils Bohr famous quote (paraprhasing) : "Yes your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough to be correct!" It also reminds one of how some of our most successful books in publishing history have been rejected dozens of times by publishers - Harry Potter by JK Rowling, Carrie by Stephen King, Dr. Seuss' books, plus many others.
