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madwriterWriters tend to have a lot of shaded (or shady) crags in their brains, and mine isn't any exception. I have a lot of bad stuff go through my head on a fairly regular basis when it comes to my own work, which I also suppose is normal, but it helps a lot to find out that even the masters can have the same thoughts.
This past weekend I was watching an interview with Herman Wouk where he was discussing one of my all-time favorite novels, The Winds of War. He was a well-established bestselling author by the time he was writing it, was so dedicated to the novel that he spent eleven years researching and writing it, and yet he suffered his own fears about it that boiled down to, as he put it, "Who's going to care about this book? Who's going to read this book?" While I can certainly understand that sort of silent suffering--it hits me hard at least a few times with every book I write--it is encouraging in a backhanded way to know that it's a universal worry.
And at least most of the time that fear doesn't stop me from writing. So whether the book is good or bad, at least there's something I must be doing right.
I've also been increasingly feeling another odd worry that I'm not sure what to make of, because it's brand new. Sort of--it's actually old when I think about it, something that was ever-present when I first started writing, but has now resurfaced. It's the fear that I'm enjoying writing whether or not I'm publishing.
I suppose this could very well be a bad thing professionally speaking, or at least in the form it's taking. That is, for awhile, 2004-09, I was publishing short stories and poetry at least semi-regularly, and 2007 saw the publication of The City Beyond Play. But since writing the Shenandoah novels (2008-10), then the Alaric Book and now Arizona, most of my writing energy has gone into concentrating on the novels. I've written few poems in that time and no short stories for two years. Which means my publishing has dropped dramatically...
...Though I'm feeling less and less worried about that because I'm enjoying writing the novels so much. Which thus worries me in itself--shouldn't I be worried about the drop in selling my shorter work?
Probably. From a professional standpoint, certainly. But in the meantime I'm still enjoying the writing immensely (fears mentioned in the first half of this entry aside), and that's not such a bad thing.
This past weekend I was watching an interview with Herman Wouk where he was discussing one of my all-time favorite novels, The Winds of War. He was a well-established bestselling author by the time he was writing it, was so dedicated to the novel that he spent eleven years researching and writing it, and yet he suffered his own fears about it that boiled down to, as he put it, "Who's going to care about this book? Who's going to read this book?" While I can certainly understand that sort of silent suffering--it hits me hard at least a few times with every book I write--it is encouraging in a backhanded way to know that it's a universal worry.
And at least most of the time that fear doesn't stop me from writing. So whether the book is good or bad, at least there's something I must be doing right.
I've also been increasingly feeling another odd worry that I'm not sure what to make of, because it's brand new. Sort of--it's actually old when I think about it, something that was ever-present when I first started writing, but has now resurfaced. It's the fear that I'm enjoying writing whether or not I'm publishing.
I suppose this could very well be a bad thing professionally speaking, or at least in the form it's taking. That is, for awhile, 2004-09, I was publishing short stories and poetry at least semi-regularly, and 2007 saw the publication of The City Beyond Play. But since writing the Shenandoah novels (2008-10), then the Alaric Book and now Arizona, most of my writing energy has gone into concentrating on the novels. I've written few poems in that time and no short stories for two years. Which means my publishing has dropped dramatically...
...Though I'm feeling less and less worried about that because I'm enjoying writing the novels so much. Which thus worries me in itself--shouldn't I be worried about the drop in selling my shorter work?
Probably. From a professional standpoint, certainly. But in the meantime I'm still enjoying the writing immensely (fears mentioned in the first half of this entry aside), and that's not such a bad thing.
