Um.
Now I am doing something else, too. I have been invited to contribute to an anthology coming out next fall (2012) from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
I am happy about this. The project sounds really fun, and I think it will be something kids and schools will really get into.
That means next fall, I will have three things coming out: The Marbury Lens (paperback), Passenger (the sequel to The Marbury Lens), and this anthology, which I will tell more about at some point in the future.
I've been pretty down on the whole writing thing this week, which is why I only posted a picture yesterday.
This week, I've been thinking quite a bit about being a writer, and how much I suck at it.
Let me make this clear: When it comes to writing, I think I am pretty good. I have some chops. I love/hate the writing part of what I do. It's the being a writer part where I am an absolute failure.
You know what I mean.
Some people want to be writers, and they may even end up pretty accomplished at being writers, but they do not know how to write.
I can't tell anyone how to write.
Lots of people can tell you how to be a writer.
I do not listen to them because I think it is boring. I am a bad student when it comes to boring stuff, which is why I fail.
I envy people who are good at being writers.
Here is my way of being a writer: Have some horrible shit happen to you when you are a kid; then, in your young adult phase engage in reckless behavior that you will probably not live through because you really do not care about living or dying; read a lot of non-shitty books and throw the shitty ones across whatever room you are in; and, if you survive, one day, when you wake up in your adulthood and realize, holy shit, how did I not die yet? you can write it down when the words smack you in the face and force you to start spitting them out.
Why would anyone ever tell you to do that?
You're better off just downloading Scrivener, or shit like that.
5 comments:
I have the same issues with being a writer. The actual writing seems disconnected from the being a writer part.
So I usually manage to say what I want to say on the page and then fail in engaging humans. I always feel that they are expecting to talk to the author and instead they get me. The author and I are related but we aren't the same guy.
Sometimes I'm sitting with editors, drinking, and I start to tell true stories. I tell the stories that are twos or threes on the five point Michael's-fucked-up-life scale and I can already see that they're a bit appalled.
They think they want to meet the author but they really don't. So you end up constructing a character who represents you. Which means you're writing again.
Wounds don't make sense.They make stories.
Dorothea Brande would love you, Andrew! :-)
I'm glad you survived, but I think it's perfectly normal that most people don't get it, or you.
If they did you'd be a normal, average guy. Thank god you're not.
Glad you're here, writing.
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