Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Writing update

Somebody once said that writers write because they have to.

Right now I'd add to that -- if you don't have to, don't.

It's nothing but pain, nothing but eternal disappointment and worst of all this constant disjunction, this constant miscommunication between the words on the page and the alien who reads them.

What I'm really afraid of is that either my preoccupations, the things I want to write about, are too shallow and inconsequential for other people to relate to -- or they're too weird and strange. The comments I get often reflect option A, but is that "didn't get it" or "there was nothing here to get"?

I don't like most of the fiction, particularly most of the fantasy, I currently see on the shelves. Martin and Mieville, unless I'm forgetting someone, are the only two big fantasy names* whose work I enjoy. So I don't aspire to write like what's popular. But what's popular is what most people like, it's what sells, it seems to be more and more the only thing that sells, and I have the sinking feeling there's just no place out there for my stories.

Then there's also that overpowering feeling that maybe mine just suck.

I have two novels currently trying to be sold. RIDER: A NOVEL, which is alternative history/character study/political allegory, will be done soon. I don't quit because I can't.

That's my advice. Don't write unless you have to.


*I define "big fantasy name" as "books come out in hardcover and are specially displayed and discounted as bestsellers/new releases at Barnes & Noble, plus most people have heard of them."