How to summon forth the Secret Author Person within you

[Doreen Peri]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... ving/books

The Writing Life
How to summon forth the Secret Author Person within you
by Laura Zigman

Sunday, Sept 3, 2006
Washington Post Book World section

[stilltrucking]

In order to convince yourself and others that you have "moved on" (accepted defeat without even trying), you will learn to hide in plain sight: You will get a normal job, one with an actual office and an actual desk (engaging in "freelance work" from your apartment or working "odd jobs" with "odd hours" are dead giveaways of your true intentions and unconscious desires).

I lost track of how many jobs I have had, hundreds of them I am pretty sure. But I never knew I wanted to be a writer until about thirty years ago.

Brilliant article, very helpful to me
thanks

[stilltrucking]

The Problems of a midlist author. Reposted from here:

http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtop ... ist+author


I was east bound on I-40 when a Jeep Cherokee in front of me flipped over and rolled a couple of times. Stuff came flying out of it. A computer flew out of the back and went sliding down the road. After the cops and ambulance arrived, (too late to for the driver he was killed instantly) I walked down the shoulder to see what happened to the computer. I like to tinker with them so I was curious if any thing had survived. I found the hard drive sitting on the fog line. I picked it up and carried it around with me until I got home a couple of weeks later. I plugged it in to a computer I had and booted it up. It was if I had the guy’s life fossilized in silicon. All his email was there. I started reading it. He was pretty successful writer. There were letters to his New York literary agent, he was not happy with her; they were not on the same page. Something about a movie deal. He was getting a couple of hundred thousand dollars he thought he deserved more. There was a letter to his wife. He was upset because she had taken a menial job in a nursery because she enjoyed the work. There were letters to his brother complaining about the work he was doing on his summer home in North Carolina. Lots of woe, the guy was miserable, pissed at everyone. He had the mid-list author blues I was still an aspiring writer back then. And I was stunned how the man’s talent had brought him so much misery. He had money, he had a wife, and he had work. But it just wasn’t enough. Then I found out the man who was killed was not the author it was his brother who was moving his stuff for him. So now he did not have a brother. I wonder what else he might have lost. After about ten minutes the hard drive began to smoke and it gave up the ghost and died. I still keep it around.

[Zlatko Waterman]

Thanks, Doreen, for the charming and entertaining article. Ms. Zigman has obviously practiced all the subversion she recommends, and ended as a published novelist.

Things were a little different for me. My musician friends thought I was a musician, and couldn't write a sentence. My painter friends thought I was a painter and couldn't carry a tune. And my writer friends thought I was a drunk, which was correct.

And to all of those folks who gave me money I was "Just another English teacher."

At the same time I was writing poems, even if I was sticking to a view over the ice cubes.

Hooray for Ms. Zigman-- she "Zig-zagged . . ." her way to success as an artist, not just a "Career Drone."

--Z

[stilltrucking]

Since you are young enough to still believe in yourself (instead of only in people who try to talk you out of believing in yourself), you will bring the subject up again (repeatedly, in an oddly masochistic "Groundhog Day" kind of way).

A big difference for me, I am old enough to still believe in myself.


I am way too old to have any desire to be published. Or maybe way too lazy.

But there are some young writers here who may someday earn their daily bread from their published works. My job is to be a bad example for them. No body has ever been more deadly in the pursuit of being published than Sylvia Somebody.

[stilltrucking]

Poor word choice

I wish I had said:

Nobody was more deadly serious about their writing than St Sylvia.

Poor St. Ted, she was so ambitious for him.