Yesterday, Dan O’Shea interviewed me. What did we talk about? Well. We talked about Irregular Creatures. We talked about self-publishing. About blogging. About pantsers versus planners. It was a thoughtful conversation, largely devoid of heavy profanity and any mention of cake and/or whores.
Quicky update today (because I’ve got to go snowblow our surprisingly long-ass driveway), and for that I drag the ol’ Painting With Shotguns blog-mode out of the drawer. Forgive me, I suspect it smells a little like mothballs. And, curiously, like ferret musk. Don’t ask questions. Just read.
And so it is time for my annual “Holy Crap The New Year Is Here And Now You Should Reevaluate Your Shit And Realize You’d Be Much Happier As An Accountant Or Botanist Or Some Fucking Thing” post. More reasons you do not want to be a writer:
Next month, I’m thinking I might use this space to take the 40,000 feet view and leave the “writing” discussion behind for February — writing, after all, is really just a delivery system for storytelling. The pen scratching and the fingers tippity-tapping across the keyboard are merely a conveyance. We’re making the unreal real. Writing is a means to that end.
I have occasionally seen sentiment that suggests writers should be little church mice, little peeping cheeping baby birds who shouldn’t ruffle any feathers with talk of politics or religion or publishing or any of that. I call shenanigans on that.
Rejection is a default state for the writer. And so it falls to you to make use from it. Make hay from your failures. Build sculptures from your wreckage. Compost your garbage and let it grow new things. It’s time to find truth in rejection. Find a way to make it useful, energizing, empowering.