Saturday, December 11, 2010

this calls for a stiff drink

Well, I think I've figured out one of the great misunderstandings of the writing world. People always say great writers are drunks because it inspires/unleashes their creativity--see Hemingway, Thomas, Poe, etc, etc, the list goes on and on. But I think maybe it's the search for an agent that inspires such raging binges. At least I know the urge would be mutually shared among most of the writers I know. And I have to admit, you need a strong stomach and a ego of steel to deal with the rejection.
At first, I didnt like the whole, "if you dont hear from us, we're not interested philosophy" of agencies. Now I"m reevaluating my opinion. It's like a mercy-killing. I think I'd rather not hear back and forget I ever sent the query than get the standard rejection, or worse, the personal and non-standard rejection letter. Sent from an Ipad, no less. Ouch. After reading that one, I pretty much wanted to go down to the liquor store and buy a fifth of whiskey. I didnt. But it might have made taking the rejection a little easier.
So, I dont know about the whole writing thing. Maybe it's just 'not meant to be,' or maybe that's an easy way out, and what I really mean is, I'm not sure I'm cut out for the whole business. I mean, if I have trouble with this, the other parts will only get worse. I'm assuming so, anyway. And who wants that? So in my discouragement, I pushed my last vampire novel aside and started writing something else. But only 11 pages of it. We'll see where this goes. Maybe it will turn into something, or maybe it will go into another folder of all the other books I've started and written from 1-80ish pages of before I lost interest. I have good ideas. They just don't always pan out into a story. Sort of like this whole writing thing.

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