Writer Arrogance
Dec. 9th, 2004 08:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raefinlayWe sometimes encounter writers at the OWW who believe they will shatter market records and win a Pulitzer with their current WIP. They are generous with advice, but attached disclaimers make it clear that such advice is akin to receiving a magical blessing. Their reviews are full of "I" and "My". They ignore criticism. If someone doesn't appreciate their work, it is because that person is incapable of recognizing genius.
I envy them.
It would be nice to have a long stretch--say, three months or so--when I could look at my WIP and not see crap. I would love to consider it saleable, would die of ecstasy to believe my premises original, my prose flawless, my characters irresistable. Writing would be so much easier if I thought, even misguidedly, that my writing would make me famous or rich or self-actualized. What an incentive! To know that fortune is just a finished novel away!
Alas, my motivation is vastly different. I write because I must. Some nights, it is sheer discipline. I write to finish this novel, so I can start a better one, and then another one after that in the hopes that by novel 3 or 4 I might have something worth selling. But even more, I have too many thoughts and emotions and stories chasing each other around in my soul and I must write to make them concrete, identifiable. I need to look at them on paper and say, "I see you! I understand you! You are no longer my mystery."
So, you OWWers with blinding arrogance, I fear you not at all, and I sincerely hope you submit to all the same agents as my honestly-laboring writer buddies. But I envy you your confidence and your hope-driven inspiration.
Now...moving on to chapter 17...
I envy them.
It would be nice to have a long stretch--say, three months or so--when I could look at my WIP and not see crap. I would love to consider it saleable, would die of ecstasy to believe my premises original, my prose flawless, my characters irresistable. Writing would be so much easier if I thought, even misguidedly, that my writing would make me famous or rich or self-actualized. What an incentive! To know that fortune is just a finished novel away!
Alas, my motivation is vastly different. I write because I must. Some nights, it is sheer discipline. I write to finish this novel, so I can start a better one, and then another one after that in the hopes that by novel 3 or 4 I might have something worth selling. But even more, I have too many thoughts and emotions and stories chasing each other around in my soul and I must write to make them concrete, identifiable. I need to look at them on paper and say, "I see you! I understand you! You are no longer my mystery."
So, you OWWers with blinding arrogance, I fear you not at all, and I sincerely hope you submit to all the same agents as my honestly-laboring writer buddies. But I envy you your confidence and your hope-driven inspiration.
Now...moving on to chapter 17...
