Trying to Be a Writer
The are two problems to this little dream I have: first, I don't write nearly enough publishable stuff, and second, I'm not very smart about seeking out markets. Meanwhile the WGA goes and strikes and pisses me off, because they have no idea how good they have it; they're living the dream!
Anyways, it seemed a good a time as any to try to take this dream to the road one more time. There was a story I wrote in college that I fell in love with called Surfer Boy. It was the only story I ever submitted to my beloved college lit journal that got flat-out rejected. It's pretty baffling how the creator is never an adequate judge of her own work, no matter how much she devotes her energy to the study of criticism. But since it was the closest thing I've written (but not yet published) to a cohesive story, I dusted it off and got it ready for another submission. I still think it's quite good. I've made some major additions, because I realized that sometime after Surfer Boy I started to write another surf piece with similar themes (though I admit it wasn't nearly as good), and Surfer Boy did need some augmentations, and there were a few good bits in the other story that I thought worth saving.
I was rather happy with the end result. I hope the editors will feel the same way, because I'm not one of those real artists who will say that it was worth it just to write for myself, even if no one else gets to see it. It's true that writing the piece made me feel good, but one must weigh that feeling against other sorts of happiness I could have derived had I spent that time doing something that could be appreciated by me AND everyone else.
Anyways, it seemed a good a time as any to try to take this dream to the road one more time. There was a story I wrote in college that I fell in love with called Surfer Boy. It was the only story I ever submitted to my beloved college lit journal that got flat-out rejected. It's pretty baffling how the creator is never an adequate judge of her own work, no matter how much she devotes her energy to the study of criticism. But since it was the closest thing I've written (but not yet published) to a cohesive story, I dusted it off and got it ready for another submission. I still think it's quite good. I've made some major additions, because I realized that sometime after Surfer Boy I started to write another surf piece with similar themes (though I admit it wasn't nearly as good), and Surfer Boy did need some augmentations, and there were a few good bits in the other story that I thought worth saving.
I was rather happy with the end result. I hope the editors will feel the same way, because I'm not one of those real artists who will say that it was worth it just to write for myself, even if no one else gets to see it. It's true that writing the piece made me feel good, but one must weigh that feeling against other sorts of happiness I could have derived had I spent that time doing something that could be appreciated by me AND everyone else.
posted by Rex at 3:43 PM
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