July 21st, 2009
No, no it wasn’t; it was Jane Smith’s, and her post on the topic is definitely worth a read.
Plagiarism is a contentious issue for everyone involved in publishing, but it seems to have a unique resonance for the unpublished author. Aspiring writers have a serious fear of having their ideas stolen; this is probably because they assume that, without having published anything, they’ll never be able to prove that they wrote their book in the first place. It’s easy to feel vulnerable when you’re unpublished. The publishing world can be a pretty intimidating thing, so it’s natural that writers have trust issues when they’re first sending out their queries. As some have explained, though, this fear is largely unfounded. There are plenty of scammers in the literary world, but they’re not interested in your manuscript, just your money.
[...]
July 21st, 2009
Perhaps in a search for some kind of perspective on the writing process, or more likely just as procrastination, I Googled the phrase “writing a novel is like” to see what came up. Here are a few of the results.
Writing a novel is like…
running a marathon or engaging in a protracted battle. a marriage. a long, rich marriage. being married to a woman you’re not too happy with. (Norman Mailer) that. driving a car at night. You never see further than your own headlights but you can make the whole trip that way. (E.L. Doctorow) diving into the deep end. being pregnant. giving birth to a child. being Bugs Bunny running off a cliff. taking a journey by boat. setting out on a vast, uncharted ocean. swimming. wading out to sea to drown. (Anne Beattie) any other [...]
July 8th, 2009
Still writing, despite the protestations of a sore wrist and the distractions of wholesome, violent video games. Woohoo! I’ve also upped my daily goal from 800 to 1,000 words; this is partly to quicken my pace and partly a sort of psychological trick, because there’s something very satisfying about crossing each increment of 1,000 words. It just feels more productive. Which, technically, it is.
I think my favorite part of writing a novel is watching the little scrollbar on the side of the screen get smaller and smaller as your word count grows. Every day when I finish writing, I go through my super-paranoid (but still advisable) backup process: I email the full draft from my personal account to my work account. That way I have a copy on my laptop at home, a copy on both email servers, [...]
|
I'm an author, artist, animator, and a-game a-designer, depending on what day it is. These, dear Internet, are my ramblings.
Visit my home page at QuinnStephens.com.
|