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the writer's dilemma - "do I suck?"
Feb. 17th, 2014 05:39 pmThree anecdotes -
Amazon is doing that "best unpublished book" contest again. Last year, I judged it because I am in Vine and I got $300 in Amazon products for my troubles. I felt like I earned that money because those manuscripts sucked. This year, they sent out the emails and said that they had 1000 slots so get there early. I looked at the two manuscripts for completed novels that I designate as "don't completely suck" and I didn't really like the first few paragraphs. I still can't get the opening to War Tale right (and I want to change the title to The Bloody and Horrible Resurrection of Sally Stokes) and I see way too many remnants of previous drafts in that work - particularly the nasty rants that the protagonist keeps directing at his son. The AIDS book is something that I haven't looked at for a long time. But regardless, I am back to not having any novels that are publishable.
Someone on Facebook posted a rather nakedly aggressive and self-immolating post going "I am a great writer! Fuck you if you think I suck!" I responded by advising him to give up writing if that was going to be his attitude towards bad reviews. He took down the update before I could. Probably for the best.
My second or third cousin asked me to take a look at her 16 year old son's manuscript and tell him what I thought. I said no. Actually I gave a rather long reason for it, but basically I said that I wouldn't help him. Because if he's writing and thinks that he can do it and if he is going to get anywhere, he has to believe that he's awesome and that nothing can stop him. And since he's 16, there's a 99% chance that he is awful. So the only thing I can do would be to piss on his dreams.
I suppose I had something to say about all of these anecdotes. I think that there's a point to make about how fiction writing is hard or how short stories are less aggravating than novels since novels are going for the big payout while short stories are the scratch-off lottery tickets. I think that a lot of this stuff means something, but right now I have a story coming up in the ninth issue of Shock Totem in the summer and it's about the Black Death. And I'm working on a story based on a 17th (or 16th?) century Japanese story called "Bewitched" that uses the snake demons legend (one that I loved from Green Snake - Tsui Hark movie - go watch it) but in terms of an ungrateful son who is breaking his family's heart by shacking up with this snake woman.
Right now, I am just enjoying it. I'm making it 80s Midwestern and instead of a shiftless priest, the youngest son is a musician - but all the elements in the story about the family living together and the brother beholden to his father and his brother - to the point that they send him off to get interrogated when they think that he stole a sword - those have to be changed. I really should do this more often - not transcribing stories into 80s Midwestern tales - but these kind of cross-cultural interpretations - maybe something with Gilgamesh next. I don't know.
But as far as rejection and bad reviews and everything else goes - damn, I don't know. The pure moment of creation keeps me going. I could be utter shit. I have read many stories that I have sent out into the world thinking that they were awesome (or good enough - I must refrain from submitting "good enough" stories) only to read them and edit them later and feel chagrin at the former faith. They don't go anywhere or they end too abruptly or they aren't saying much.
Maybe I said all this in that previous post where I compared getting laid to getting published. When you aren't doing it, you just want it. But when it becomes a thing - well you want quality and you want to bring your best self to it. If you're paying for it, there's nothing that really says that you deserve to be getting it. (and the act of paying pretty much means that you don't), but working on art is hard - almost as hard as working on your own personality to cultivate all those personality traits - patience, decency, lack of creepiness - that you so admire in others.
Amazon is doing that "best unpublished book" contest again. Last year, I judged it because I am in Vine and I got $300 in Amazon products for my troubles. I felt like I earned that money because those manuscripts sucked. This year, they sent out the emails and said that they had 1000 slots so get there early. I looked at the two manuscripts for completed novels that I designate as "don't completely suck" and I didn't really like the first few paragraphs. I still can't get the opening to War Tale right (and I want to change the title to The Bloody and Horrible Resurrection of Sally Stokes) and I see way too many remnants of previous drafts in that work - particularly the nasty rants that the protagonist keeps directing at his son. The AIDS book is something that I haven't looked at for a long time. But regardless, I am back to not having any novels that are publishable.
Someone on Facebook posted a rather nakedly aggressive and self-immolating post going "I am a great writer! Fuck you if you think I suck!" I responded by advising him to give up writing if that was going to be his attitude towards bad reviews. He took down the update before I could. Probably for the best.
My second or third cousin asked me to take a look at her 16 year old son's manuscript and tell him what I thought. I said no. Actually I gave a rather long reason for it, but basically I said that I wouldn't help him. Because if he's writing and thinks that he can do it and if he is going to get anywhere, he has to believe that he's awesome and that nothing can stop him. And since he's 16, there's a 99% chance that he is awful. So the only thing I can do would be to piss on his dreams.
I suppose I had something to say about all of these anecdotes. I think that there's a point to make about how fiction writing is hard or how short stories are less aggravating than novels since novels are going for the big payout while short stories are the scratch-off lottery tickets. I think that a lot of this stuff means something, but right now I have a story coming up in the ninth issue of Shock Totem in the summer and it's about the Black Death. And I'm working on a story based on a 17th (or 16th?) century Japanese story called "Bewitched" that uses the snake demons legend (one that I loved from Green Snake - Tsui Hark movie - go watch it) but in terms of an ungrateful son who is breaking his family's heart by shacking up with this snake woman.
Right now, I am just enjoying it. I'm making it 80s Midwestern and instead of a shiftless priest, the youngest son is a musician - but all the elements in the story about the family living together and the brother beholden to his father and his brother - to the point that they send him off to get interrogated when they think that he stole a sword - those have to be changed. I really should do this more often - not transcribing stories into 80s Midwestern tales - but these kind of cross-cultural interpretations - maybe something with Gilgamesh next. I don't know.
But as far as rejection and bad reviews and everything else goes - damn, I don't know. The pure moment of creation keeps me going. I could be utter shit. I have read many stories that I have sent out into the world thinking that they were awesome (or good enough - I must refrain from submitting "good enough" stories) only to read them and edit them later and feel chagrin at the former faith. They don't go anywhere or they end too abruptly or they aren't saying much.
Maybe I said all this in that previous post where I compared getting laid to getting published. When you aren't doing it, you just want it. But when it becomes a thing - well you want quality and you want to bring your best self to it. If you're paying for it, there's nothing that really says that you deserve to be getting it. (and the act of paying pretty much means that you don't), but working on art is hard - almost as hard as working on your own personality to cultivate all those personality traits - patience, decency, lack of creepiness - that you so admire in others.
