Fifth Bullet: What time is it?
Here in my special writing office, it's about 3:00.
In the morning.
In fact, that's when my days generally begin, and my days begin with writing. Every day.
Look, if you want to ever be taken seriously, you have to take yourself seriously and realize that doing anything well, whether it's building a house, cooking breakfast, or writing novels, requires some degree of discipline and planning. Novels don't write themselves, and the writing part is the job part.
So, anyone who's task-oriented and disciplined can write a book. Anyone. It probably won't be a good one, but it can be done. I see a lot of task-oriented, disciplined works being produced across all genres these days. Not particularly good ones, but they're books.
Because anyone can learn to be a decent writer, especially in terms of the mechanics and technique of writing, if you stick to it and apply yourself. Occasionally, rarely, some writers will come along who possess so much innate talent that they just do it. Kind of like what Michael Grant commented yesterday.
He has a kind of opposite view on the thick skin/thin skin debate, but I like having no-nonsense, straightforward friends like Michael who make cutting through all the B.S. seem so easy. So, thanks for your, as usual, brilliant and funny comment, Michael.
It made me cry, though.
I'm a thin-skinned wuss.
5 comments:
Readers should have been able to sit in on our post-SCIBA conversation in which you and the lovely Kathryn Fitzmaurice were trapped in a web of cynicism pouring from DJ MacHale, Jennifer Rofe and me. It had a certain amusing whores n' virgins quality to it.
(Yes, I know, web and pouring isn't exactly a felicitous construction. I'm tired.)
At some point you should write a book on writing aimed at kids. Seriously. You're passionate on the topic and passion can be profitable. (Sorry, sometimes I just can't stop the pouring of the web.) Maybe you'd save some of them from their English teachers, and actually inspire them. I thought of doing it and calling it Buck By Buck, (with apologies to Anne Lamott.) But I'm not sure quite what I'd be inspiring them to do.
I totally agree about taking yourself seriously and treating your writing like a job. If you don't do that, you won't be able to make a career of writing. If that's not what you want, well... :)
The whole thick/thin skin thing has been turning around in my head. I think both you and Michael Grant have valid points on both ends, but I think there's more to it.
You need both. AND, you need to be able to put them on and take them off at will. The trick is knowing when to wear each of them.
In the early stages of a novel, you need the thin skin, so you can immerse yourself in the story, in the world, and see/feel/etc absolutely everything.
Then, when you are nearing completion (by completion, I mean the end of revisions, not the end of your first draft), you need to don the thick skin. This helps you sort through the various feedback, keep the valuable input and toss the rest.
Without that, your ability to improve is severely limited.
Thank you Tabitha. I see your point, and you express it well. So does Michael. I wish I had the ability to insulate myself at times, but I just don't. One of these days it probably will take a heavy toll on me. As always, I am in awe and admiration of Michael, and especially of writers like you who can maintain such a level-headed perspective. Today, I am especially losing it, though.
"One of these days it probably will take a heavy toll on me."
Nah. You'd eventually learn to deflect certain things. :)
I do agree wholeheartely with you that the thick skin advice is given way too often and without the proper context. Kind of like 'show don't tell.' But that's an entirely different discussion... :)
Actually when I started writing it used to be very emotional for me. I recall writing something -- I can't remember what the hell it was -- and then bursting into tears upon hearing Hey La, Hey La, My Boyfriend's Back.
Which is disturbing at so many levels. Clearly I'm a man who needs sleep.
Even when we were ghosting early on we'd get very worked up over stuff. But gradually, as we dealt with annoying publishers and dishonest agents and just kept pumping out book after book I began to achieve my current armadillo-like thickness of skin.
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