July 15, 2003
Holy crap!
Another 2,000 word day, putting my monthly count so far over 10,000 words. I'm astounded and amazed. Today I did a pretty big chunk of fleshing out my outline, realizing that the outline I had so far was not going to be much near novel length. So one of the center sections got longer. And a subplot or two got thrown into the mix. This is so cool. It's like this weird combination of my usual freestyle writing combined with a more analytical, building block approach.
The novel word count itself is approaching 10,000 as well.
Yesterday I went to the library and found two books on writing I'm looking forward to reading. The first was Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print by Lawrence Block. I've read one of his writing books before, Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, and while I don't always agree with his approach, he's amusing to read and has some good insights. The other one was The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner. This one I'm really looking forward to diving into, after I finish the Block.
Heh. The librarian who checked out my books said, "Oh cool, you're a writer?" I answered, "Well, I'm trying to be." Then I stopped and corrected myself. "No, I mean, I am a writer. I just haven't been paid much for it yet." Of course, she asked what I was writing, and her eyes went blank and kinda glazed when I told her it was urban fantasy. ;)
Posted by Lisa at July 15, 2003 12:49 PMYou know, if I were truly a violent person, I might have to smack you.
You *are* a writer.
That you have been paid *ANYTHING* at all, whether it's "not much" or not, is merely validation.
You gotta get over yourself.
Posted by: Mer at July 16, 2003 09:31 AMHey. I /did/ stop and correct myself, didn't you see? ;) I've just noticed that sometimes if you tell civilians (i.e., nonwriters) that you're a writer, the next words out of their mouths is "What have you written?" meaning "What's published?" So I end up qualifying to try and head off that question.
I'm trying to stop though, I swear. ;)
Posted by: Lisa at July 16, 2003 09:41 AMA paraphrase from a story by fantasy author Peter S. Beagle: "Kings need bards, but bards don't need kings."
Publishers need authors to be publishers. Authors can author without ever once meeting a publisher.
You don't need validation ~
- emc
Posted by: Eric M. Cherry at July 17, 2003 01:54 PM