Writerly angst
Oct. 14th, 2004 08:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhetleyJust reading Peg Kerr's lament about uncertainty in the writing life. And Rolanni's grumbles over going back to rework a "done" chapter that sent the story line off in the wrong direction. And here I am with the female lead of my current work telling lies to me. I _thought_ she was a Vietnamese refugee with a father and brother in "reeducation" camps, that's what she told another character -- turns out she's born and raised in the US and just makes up romantic background stories when people ask too many personal questions. She's still a cast-iron bitch, though.
I thought this stuff was supposed to get easier with practice. I've seen three or four good reviews for WINTER OAK, including one that's _really_ important (Publisher's Weekly), and I'm still angsting over whether that damned book actually works and whether it will sell enough copies to keep Ace forking over cash for more-of-the-same-but-different. That's for words I wrote 2-3 years ago.
And if I put as much time and effort into architecture as I do into writing, we'd sure eat steak for dinner more often. With the exception of a handful of "names" in each genre, writing fiction doesn't pay minimum wage.
Maybe writing should be filed under "curse."
I thought this stuff was supposed to get easier with practice. I've seen three or four good reviews for WINTER OAK, including one that's _really_ important (Publisher's Weekly), and I'm still angsting over whether that damned book actually works and whether it will sell enough copies to keep Ace forking over cash for more-of-the-same-but-different. That's for words I wrote 2-3 years ago.
And if I put as much time and effort into architecture as I do into writing, we'd sure eat steak for dinner more often. With the exception of a handful of "names" in each genre, writing fiction doesn't pay minimum wage.
Maybe writing should be filed under "curse."
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-14 05:17 pm (UTC)When you look at something, and your heart is overflowing with joy, and you think "I helped bring that about!"
I don't think it ever is as good with writing as with the effects of writing, though. Sometimes, my writing seems really good, really damn good, but often it seems a bit embarrassing. But, sometimes it reaches out and touches someone and does what I wanted it to do, and that makes up for a lot of the pain in the process.
And, writing can definitely be filed under "curse" to some degree.