This is very applicable to me. Though I haven’t published any novels yet, the writing bug has bitten me hard. It bit me young and then (to continue the metaphor completely) the infection spread and didn’t stop. It’s glorious.
Sometimes it can be a pest. I didn’t do much writing in November or December. If that continued, then it would be like giving up and letting the “infection” die. But I can’t do it. My mind is full of ideas and though I may not write all of them down, or not as often as perhaps I could, I’ll never stop. The ideas will always be there.
Lily’s story in particular….It wants four (maybe three) books. So of course there’s a glut of ideas swimming around in my head, telling me to hurry up and get on with it!
I will never not give blog space to Kameron Hurley, because Kameron Hurley is a whip-crack crotch-kick of a writer. She is amazing, and she is welcome here forever. (I mean, it doesn’t help that she stole the keys to the blog and made herself a copy.) Read her books. But read this first. * * * I’ve given up on a lot of things in my life: Relationships. Carbs. Being an astronaut. Adjunct teaching. Running for “fun.” Most things concocted at Taco Bell. What I never gave up on is pursuing a career as a writer. And when I look at all the other things in life I gave up on, I wonder why it is that I’ve been willing to stick with something that has been, at times, more brutal than the worst relationship, more punishing to my body than carbs, and certainly not nearly as tasty as some of the scariest shit at Taco Bell. Why do some writers persist, and some writers – many of them the most talented and promising writers I’ve ever known– quit? It’s a question I ask myself the longer I work in the business. And it’s a question I get from a lot of colleagues and fans the longer I persist. This is a post for writers who want to make their career as writers of fiction. If you’d just like to “put something out there” or write a great book every ten years for a few thousand dollars, those are perfectly valid approaches to writing. But heads’ up that this isn’t going to be the post for you. … (Read more by clicking on the title.)
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myzania 