Re: anything published recently?

boots wrote:

John Ashby <J.V.Ashby@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

boots wrote:

Alan Hope <usenet.identity@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

boots goes:

Wildepad <noreplies> wrote:

What does raise my shields
is the possibility that one of these creeps might negatively
impact my life and/or the market for writing.

Given that the muse is skittish that seems reasonable. Some are
mechanical in their writing, others are not. If your writing
demands a particular emotional balance, it takes little to knock
over the cart.

What utter unspeakable pants.

That's a new one on me, "unspeakable pants"? Is that Brit, or what?

The muse is fucking skittish, indeed.
Give yourself a slap for me, would you?

"Thanks, I needed that."

There's a good chap.

Indeed. Now, if you ever get over your mechanized coggism and
determine to write a novel instead of grinding out tripe, you might
find that the muse is in fact as skittish as a fairy, or even big
beardy hisself. Doubtful that you'll ever get there though, since
you know in advance that you'd be unable to meet your own standards,
much less those of J.K.Rowling and others the unwashed masses have
graced with the "success" you so disdain in favor of unpublished
greatness.


If you study what makes successful writers successful,

You won't be writing while you're busily studying, but you will be
strengthening your skills as a copier of others.

more often than not

More often than not writers fail outright regardless.

it's a refusal to indulge a skittish muse, but instead to apply the
seat of one's trousers to an office chair and write. Trollope did a
thousand words before going off to work at the Post Office every day,
Graham Greene stuck to two hundred words. Discipline is what's
needed.

Yes, I heard the tired old "work hard and you'll succeed" lie as a
youth too, but I stopped accepting it as Gospel when I learned that
it's bull*** pure and simple.

The odds are stacked heavily against the success or even survival of
any novelist. When the odds are heavily against you it's time to burn
every bridge you cross, not leave a contingent behind to guard them
for your eventual retreat.


What a dreadful metaphor. How does one burn one's bridges by being at
the behest of a skittish muse? Or to put it another way, where would we
be today if the Duke of Wellington had suffered from Soldier's Block at
Waterloo?

Your mechanical view of the world makes me tired, Ashby; begone.


That's my *quantum* mechanical view of the world. Take a nap if you're
tired.

john

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