How about a little humor for a Friday?

“Anybody who writes a book is an optimist. First of all, they think they’re going to finish it. Second, they think somebody’s going to publish it. Third, they think somebody’s going to read it. Fourth, they think somebody’s going to like it. How optimistic is that?”

- Margaret Atwood in an interview with CNN (via Amanda the Aspiring Writer)

Awesome, no? Then in the comments section of that interview, I found something that’s awesome in an entirely different way:

Hehehe.

Other than nerdy writing funnies, I’m keeping myself busy with the new WIP. Starting slow (daily quota of 500 words) but I’d like to finish the whole thing by April, so obviously I’ll be picking up the pace.

I’ve also started “morning pages” — which I haven’t been doing in the morning, but whatever. Through this freewriting, I’ve already gotten a new idea for a YA novel. Because, you know, FIVE ideas waiting to be written wasn’t enough.

o_O

Ah well, into the queue it goes…

Okay, I bought and finished Catching Fire, and can I just say: IS IT AUGUST ALREADY?! I want to read Mockingjay. Like, NOW!

Aaauuurrrrggghhhh.

{deep breath} Okay, anyway…

Since I can’t speed time up and make it August, I will just finish my reading binge (4 books in 3 days so far) with Scott Westerfield’s Uglies. I admit, with all this reading I haven’t been diligent about my outlining… but I will get back on it tonight! (I was going to say tomorrow, but we all know how easy it is to never make “tomorrow” become “today”.)

In the meantime, I think this “essay” by author Dani Shapiro is a must-read for any writer. A few gems:

“It doesn’t appear to be a matter of talent itself,” he wrote. “Some of the most natural writers, the ones who seemed to shake their prose or poetry out of their sleeves, are among the disappeared. As far as I can tell, the decisive factor is what I call endurability: that is, the ability to deal effectively with uncertainty, rejection, and disappointment, from within as well as from without.”

Today’s young writers don’t peruse the dusty shelves of previous generations. Instead, they are besotted with the latest success stories: The 18-year-old who receives a million dollars for his first novel; the blogger who stumbles into a book deal; the graduate student who sets out to write a bestselling thriller — and did.

The 5,000 students graduating each year from creative writing programs (not to mention the thousands more who attend literary festivals and conferences) do not include insecurity, rejection and disappointment in their plans. I see it in their faces: the almost evangelical belief in the possibility of the instant score. And why not? They are, after all, the product of a moment that doesn’t reward persistence, that doesn’t see the value in delaying recognition, that doesn’t trust in the process but only the outcome. As an acquaintance recently said to me: “So many crappy novels get published. Why not mine?”

Writers now use words like “track” and “mid-list” and “brand” and “platform.” They tweet and blog and make Facebook friends in the time they used to spend writing. Authors who stumble can find themselves quickly in dire straits. How, under these conditions, can a writer take the risks required to create something original and resonant and true?

The latter two I think are true of a lot of industries, not just writing, nowadays.

Yes, my generation grew up believing that things can (and should) happen right away. And yet, we also grew up goofing off online, wasting time but telling ourselves we’re just multi-tasking. It’s a funny contradiction: wanting results immediately, but putting off or drawing out the work indefinitely. There’s a lot written about how this is a problem for today’s employers, but I wonder if any of us are aware of just how big a problem it may be for us.

Anyway, I’m not here to pass judgment. I’m just saying that as much as I am a product of my generation — as much as I would love “the instant score,” and as much as I do waste time online — I am aware that writing is a long-haul kind of industry. And I’m here to go the distance. I’m here to cross that tundra. I’m here to work and wait as long as it takes.

(At least until August. Then I’m taking another reading break. :P)

Lately I’ve been thinking about why people write. What are people’s reasons for putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys), and are those reasons “legitimate”? Is there such a thing as a bad reason to write? Do you have to have a reason at all?

Eric is the one who got me thinking about all this, when he tweeted and then blogged about being (what I termed) a “word-doctor”:

I see myself staunching wounds. All the pages of all my books going into a great hole in people and slowing the loss of blood.

I, on the other hand, probably provide the laughing gas:

My writing… is more like the anesthesia. It takes you to your happy place, lol.

Erin is the teacher:

Good writing has the ability to make us feel things we may not otherwise be in a position to feel, and because of that we are fuller, richer human beings.

It has the power to convey profound truths without us having to experience them for ourselves.

To heal, to entertain, to educate… Just a few reasons from a few writers. Hardly a complete list. And if I had to guess, I’d say it’s likely that we’re all motivated by a combination of these reasons, even if one is chief in our minds at a certain time.

For example, if I had to boil it down right now, I would say that I write because I think and feel deeply when I look at this world, and I want to share those thoughts and feelings in an eloquent and meaningful way. A way that might make other people think and feel deeply too.

That’s true whether I’m writing a literary short story about dead deer, a web series about 3 twenty-something girls, or a novel about teenagers with superpowers. (Believe it or not, hahaha.)

What are the reasons that you write? What do you hope to accomplish, if anything? Do you write for yourself, for the whole world, for your cat?

Do you think why we write even matters?

Writing and love are both leaps into the unknown, acts of discipline as much as they are acts of faith. If you are not in love with writing then you shouldn’t write, because without love, you won’t be able to take it. (And I didn’t say in love with your writing—I said in love with writing. There’s a difference.)

Maybe this is how we continue to face the anguish of rejection: through the inherent belief that we are good and worthy and that our efforts and our being are not doomed to solitude; that we will find validation and laugh in the faces of those who once rejected us, even if we know that that kind of victory is temporal at best; even as we redefine rejection not so much as defeat, but as an inevitable part of our process, our climb toward victory, which is at least partially won as long as we choose to write.

- from “Rejection” by Terrence Cheng, via Glimmer Train

The process is all so slow, as dreams are slow, as dreams suspend time like a balloon hung in midair. I want it all to happen now. I want whatever miracle I am party to, to prosper and grow: I want the dimensions of time that have been loosened from their foundations to entwine like a basketful of bright embroidery threads. But it seems that even for dreams, I have to work and wait.

- From Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella