Saturday, August 24, 2013

A Specter Approaches

My mind is a rambling mess – where one thought is spoken, another interrupts it, and one thread starts and then flies off into another thread – where did I put my glasses? What was I talking about? 



Let’s talk about stress. I’ve wanted to be a published author for the last 9 years. I’ve been writing steadily since. I’ve written my share of short-fiction, but mostly I concentrate on novels which are fucking time consuming. It took me four years to write my first novel, and it was only 55,000 words! I got rejected 27 times, and have since let it gather dust on the bookshelf in my brain. I completed an 80,000 word novel, but since it still needs some editing (and I’m not entirely in love with the work since it was written in 2007...I was a different person then) though never queried it to an agent/ publisher. Other works I’ve finished, but likewise never sent off.

I finished a 55,000 novel about a kid who visits Montreal to learn how to accept himself, his personality, his place in society. So far 6 rejections.

I am a scared little bitch to get rejected another 55 times like that writer of The Help.

Last night (as I so often ask myself, but this time I couldn’t get an answer that made me feel better): why the fuck am I spending loads of time writing when I haven’t gotten published?

I am a loner; I am a loser – I accept that. But for godsakes, there would be some saving grace to all this work had I been recognized by somebody, for some of my words, by now.

Am I insane? Yes, but for other reasons than spending so many hours writing.

Vanity publishing seems the way to go. Why not stroke my own fucking ego? Is that what I’m really looking for?

Should I be concerned with the endgame of publishing? No. Not at all, but I can’t come to terms with that.

By now, I feel my work is akin to a stumbling homeless man suffering from schizophrenia, comes across an empty well in his countryside travels, stops, looks down and sees the blackness and thinks of nothing coherent or sensible to do than yell his tired old lungs out into the abyss.

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