You get a month off. No one will bother you. Everyone you care about has expressed support…nay, demanded that you do nothing but write and all will be fine without you until you return. You have a cabin in the woods, or a beach house, or a hotel in Hawaii…ok wherever you want. And all you have to do for the next month is write.
In fact, let’s up the ante. You are locked in the room. You have all the food, sustenance, drinks, water, bathroom, really all the things you need in life. And there’s no distractions. You get like one hour a day for a TV watching break. After that, the TV magically stops until the next day’s one hour break.
Also, you only get to use the Internet in so far as you are conducting novel research. Once you start looking up youtube videos about cats engaging in hilarious activities, the Internet shuts down until you conduct serious research again.
You’re free of all distractions. You have all that you need.
QUESTION – Given this situation, what would you write?
“Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction can be difficult, lonely job; it’s like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Do you doubt yourself while you’re writing? I know I do. Is that a good thing? Perhaps some of the junkiest books come from folks who believe that nothing but rainbows comes out of their pen? Perhaps some of the best writing comes from people who have toiled away, questioning and self-debating every single, solitary last word choice?
What say you, readers?
…The Creative Penn, starring Author Joanna Penn. Lots of good information and advice. Awesome British accent.
The Creative Penn Podcast: Writing, Publishing, Book Marketing, Making A Living With Your Writing
The Master of the Romance Novel is getting a divorce. Naturally, the Twittasphere is aghast, with tasteless comments about the irony of a romance writer’s marriage falling apart. Hell, even this jerk face felt the need to say something snarky:
Personally, I say we give the guy a break. I hate to break it to people, but here goes:
Authors make up stuff for a living.
The real world is never as perfect as the fantasy worlds that an author can create. In a make believe world, dudes climb up the sides of Ferris Wheels to impress their lady loves. In the real world, yours truly would not climb up the side of a Ferris Wheel, even if the trifecta of Scarlett Johannson, Charlize Theron, and Katy Perry where waiting for me. I’d totally climb a Merry-Go-Round for them but a Ferris Wheel? Fahgeddabout it.
In fact, here’s an early draft of The Notebook where I was originally considered for Gosling’s part:
RACHEL MCADAMS: Climb up this Ferris Wheel to see me, my love!
ME: Um, no thank you.
RACHEL MCADAMS: But it will be a great expression of your love for me!
ME: That looks pretty high. I can love you just as well from down here.
RACHEL MCADAMS: If I hook up with another man, will you pine half your life away for me until I see your picture in the newspaper and find you again?
ME: Um…Jesus, that sounds like a lot of work. No, no, probably not. You’re cool and all, but you know…other fish in the sea and everything.
See? Real life is never as good as the fantasy that an author can create. And we WANT those authors to create fantasy worlds to distract us from the drab realties of the world.
So before people gang up on Sparks, consider the following:
1) George Lucas is not really a Jedi.
2) Stephanie Meyer and Anne Rice are not vampires.
3) John Grisham has never been an attorney in the wrong place at the wrong time who accidentally discovers the wrong file and now all the bad guys are chasing him.
4) Michael Crichton never made a dinosaur.
5) Shakespeare was never the Prince of Denmark.
6) Suzanne Collins never fought in a futuristic, no-holds barred kid vs. kid reality show.
7) Hugh Howey doesn’t live in an underground silo.
8) Steven King never went insane while working as the Winter caretaker of a haunted inn.
9) Charles Dickens was never visited by three Christmas ghosts.
10) Pierce Brown has never lived on Mars.
11) James Patterson has never been an African American Detective
12) George RR Martin is not a knight in an enchanted land of magic and wonder
13) Orson Scott Card has never fought an intergalactic race of bug aliens
14) Thomas Harris is not a cannibal
15) Ray Bradbury was not a Martian.
So honestly, folks – if writers have to limit their writing to things they have done, then we won’t have much to read, will we?
Sure, there’s plenty of irony and room to make jokes, but when I see the comments people are making like “I can’t trust his romance novels again” etc. – I mean, come on…the guy just lost his marriage, people, you don’t need to attack his career too.
Bookshelf Battle 