As a fan of literature I've recently been diversifying my literature preferences with that of the historical era I profess the most interest in namely that of the Soviet Union.
However one thing that has confused me is just how would one go about becoming a writer in the Soviet Union. I am aware (apologies for this is the not correct name but in the vicinity) of the state sanctioned union of writers but how on earth did somebody decide they were going to be a writer?
Obviously in the USA or Europe most folks simply wrote their manuscript and sent them out to publishers or agents. How would it work in the U.S.S.R?
Did they have to show an aptitude for creative writing at school? Did they have the equivalent of agents? How would the state decide to let some people simply become full time writers especially if they were already allocated a role?
I ask this for the perspective of people who were outside of the Party as their connections explains how they could do so. But how could your average Ivanna or Vladmir decide to go about becoming a writer?
Membership in the union of writers was certainly a requirement if one wanted to be a full time writer, but to apply for a membership in a first place you were required to have some published works. In the end it wasn't that much different from the west: if you wanted to be a writer you just had to write something and get it published. Writing short stories for various magazines was a good start, there were also literature magazines that specialized on publishing works of aspiring authors.
How would the state decide to let some people simply become full time writers especially if they were already allocated a role?
Not much different from changing a place of employment, many USSR born writers started with a different profession.