Is Anybody Out There?
Today, is a rough writing day.
Note, a "writing" day does not necessarily have anything at all to do with the act of writing. I simply mean, today's a tough author day. Bad and good writing days are my version of the answer to the question, "How was your day at the office, dear?"
In truth, from a writing standpoint, it's been a good month.
But if writing were all I had to do as an author...well that would be cool, first of all - but, it would eliminate a heck of a lot of my peaks and valleys.
Disclaimer: I love writing. It's the one profession I enjoy despite it's cons. And I write because I'm compelled to. So I don't feel I have much choice in the matter.
However, some days I'm bothered by how quiet things are. There's no immediate gratification to writing. There's barely any delayed gratification. Royalty statements come out twice a year and that's about all there is.
In between those statements, you have no idea how well book sales are going. Which only serves to frustrate you because everyone who knows you're a writer will inevitably ask, "So how's the book doing?"
I swear, the next time I hear that question I may just say, "Oh, well you know it was a little colicky last night. I was up all night." Then just let them look at me like I've lost my mind...which, by the way, I'm not so sure is not fact.
The flip side to this delayed gratification are the emails from readers and people who see you and tell you they enjoyed it. Those are great. I'm still a newbie, so those too are far and few between. But much appreciated all the same.
At least you know someone besides you and your editor read the book.
I think my irritation stems from being a pop culture fanatic. It's tough to hear ratings for TV shows, box office numbers for films and chart ratings for singles but yet have no whisperings about how well any book outside of the New York Times list is doing.
The solution, may be to stop consuming so much pop culture info. But since we know that ain't gonna happen, I'll just chalk today up as one of those days and hope tomorrow is better.
Note, a "writing" day does not necessarily have anything at all to do with the act of writing. I simply mean, today's a tough author day. Bad and good writing days are my version of the answer to the question, "How was your day at the office, dear?"
In truth, from a writing standpoint, it's been a good month.
But if writing were all I had to do as an author...well that would be cool, first of all - but, it would eliminate a heck of a lot of my peaks and valleys.
Disclaimer: I love writing. It's the one profession I enjoy despite it's cons. And I write because I'm compelled to. So I don't feel I have much choice in the matter.
However, some days I'm bothered by how quiet things are. There's no immediate gratification to writing. There's barely any delayed gratification. Royalty statements come out twice a year and that's about all there is.
In between those statements, you have no idea how well book sales are going. Which only serves to frustrate you because everyone who knows you're a writer will inevitably ask, "So how's the book doing?"
I swear, the next time I hear that question I may just say, "Oh, well you know it was a little colicky last night. I was up all night." Then just let them look at me like I've lost my mind...which, by the way, I'm not so sure is not fact.
The flip side to this delayed gratification are the emails from readers and people who see you and tell you they enjoyed it. Those are great. I'm still a newbie, so those too are far and few between. But much appreciated all the same.
At least you know someone besides you and your editor read the book.
I think my irritation stems from being a pop culture fanatic. It's tough to hear ratings for TV shows, box office numbers for films and chart ratings for singles but yet have no whisperings about how well any book outside of the New York Times list is doing.
The solution, may be to stop consuming so much pop culture info. But since we know that ain't gonna happen, I'll just chalk today up as one of those days and hope tomorrow is better.
posted by Paula at 2:07 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home