Tue 31 Jan 2006
What the hell are we doing here?
Presumably, if you’re reading this blog, you love to write, or at very least you have a passing infatuation with the written word. Great. So write! But why try to publish? Why not just write for fun, make photocopies of your stories and hand them around to your friends and family?
The writing industry — especially the world of fiction — is like a giant tank of flaming acid filled with editors and agents and your competition, and also chainsaw-wielding mutant barracudas. Sure, there may be treasure on the bottom of the tank, but is getting there really worth it? Why are we struggling against the stream (of flaming acid!) to (if we’re lucky!) get paid not very much for a lot of really painful, difficult work? It’s like trying to make it in Hollywood as an actor or actress, except the parties aren’t as much fun and it’s harder to sleep your way to the top.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not quitting. I’ve committed myself to this insane course of action with a vitriolic fervor. But then, I’m notorious for launching myself at ridiculously impractical projects with a mad gleam in my eye and froth on my lips. The mere specter of a chance of hope of success is enough to drive me, foaming and gibbering, at my target. But I know that the chances of victory are small, and the odds of being disappointed, again and again and again, are great.
OK, I’m crazy. So what’s your excuse?
5 Responses to “The Insanity Defense”
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January 31st, 2006 at 10:49 am
I write to write. Fiction in particular I write for pleasure — I find it almost but not quite as quixotic as the quest to publish poetry. Which I also pursue for the pleasure of it.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:10 pm
There’s this extreme pleasure in seeing your book in print, with a cover, and for sale at Amazon or B&N. There’s an extra level of zing and pride that happens when you can give your friends and family a copy of your work in regular standard book form, and have it look like something that won’t mess up the “groove” of their bookshelves. Personally, I’d gladly pay the $400-$600 to self-publish and have all of those warm fuzzies rather than dip my little toeses in the shark pool.
January 31st, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Getting published is one of the semi-tangible measures of success for a writer (a flavor of artist that alternates between crushing self-doubt and egomania). It’s an outward sign of inward progress. At the end of the day you can look at the mirror and say “my stuff is at least worth some amount of money to someone.” We so often reduce things to a simple dollar value, art even, but what other standard do we have in a culture where everything is being bartered for everything else?
January 31st, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Cash. Applause. The need to tell my story and scratch an itch. I’m not sure there is a single cause. Perhaps because maybe I _could_, and if I don’t try, then I’ll never know whether or not I might have done it, and there will never be anyone other than myself to blame.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:53 pm
I think getting published, as was said, is very validating. Both on a social level, and on a personal level. Personally, because once a story is a book…you know it’s finished, and there’s (hopefully) a sense of satisfaction to it. And you know that someone else feels that your work is worthwhile enough to present to others. Socially, because being published is one of the few accepted marks of success for a writer. And the money is nice too, of course.