Saturday, September 12, 2009

Fetal typewriter


There's a general consensus that 10 years is more or less the gestation period of a writer. I'm a year or two past that now, so I guess I was getting published during my apprenticeship. Some writers never seem to improve once they get published, because they figure--quite reasonably, if it's paying the bills--that what they're doing is working. others regress in a desperate attempt to find what's trendy. others create new challenges and blossom both artistically and commercially. I'm not sure which future is mine. All three look possible for me, except I can never figure out what's trendy, so that detour is probably off the map. I do know that when I put in a good day's writing and fight the good fight, I feel nigh on invincible, whether such stuff gets published or not. I always tell writers to write for that feeling, that moment of triumph, because that might be the only reward. Now if I can believe it myself..

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