Jolly Bad Form, What?

[poliphilo]

I finished revising my 4th novel yesterday. Which frees me to go back to writing the 5th.

Writing is great fun, revising is less fun- and trying to get an agent interested is the pits. I hate the whole business of selling myself- and always have done.

It's not just laziness- though it's that as well- it's a feeling (buried deep down in my repressed 1950s-issue psyche)that self-advertisement is tacky and wrong. Bad form. Your authentic English gentleman- like the chaps played by Michael Redgrave and John Mills in The Way To The Stars- would die rather than draw attention to himself. We're exuberant enough when it comes to flying around in Spitfires biffing the Hun, but once back on terra firma we sit alone in the darkest corner of the pub, nursing our half pints and stonewalling all attempts at conversation.

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on finishing the revision of your fourth novel.

If it's as interesting and readable as your posts, it should sell itself.

My daughter writes, and she hates the revision stage. She goes off to Panera (a local coffee shop) in a bad mood with a pile of pages. I avoid her. I avoid her when she returns, too, and dread it when she's at the weeping stage ("This isn't any good, and I might as well throw it all out.")

She has sold small things ("What To Do With All Those Free-Range Eggs" and articles about handspinning and goats), but she's yet to break into the novel market--she writes juvenile mysteries, fantasy, and science fiction.

And, now that I'm retired, she's encouraging me to "do something" to unleash my Great Talent. Just thinking about Doing Something results in a wave of despair, so I am putting it off.

How I envy you that writing for you is a part of the rhythm of your life. I'm still at the pencil-sharpening, dreading stage.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But you write very well.

I've been thinking lately that print publication is a thing of the past. The Net is where it's at. Increasingly I look at this blog as the place where I do my serious writing.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Mm, but surely nothing can beat seeing something you've written in actual print, on paper. With an ISBN! Furthermore, publications on the web will never replace books and magazines until ebooks are a lot more comfortable to read - and can be accidentally dropped in the bath without mishap.

/wannabe print author

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've had one book published. It is now forgotten. I see it sitting on the shelf and it doesn't particularly lift my heart. We wannabe authors think publication if forever and it ain't. Just go into any second-hand bookshop and look at all the titles on the 10p rack.