This is so much easier than actually writing...

[f4f3]

"Novelists have, on the average, about the same IQs as the cosmetic consultants at Bloomingdale's department store. Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time." - Kurt Vonnegut

Comments

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Now now, where's your novel?

I agree with Mr Vonnegut, actually. Achieving a PhD is more or less the same.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

600 words in, 2,000 or so to go today.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

I think you only need about 1700 words/day, unless I've done my maths wrong. 2,600 words/day is just showing off! ;)

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I'm planning on some time off!

I want to do 2,500 a day, and maybe leave some editing time.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

why is everyone writing a novel right now: you, me, frankietch....

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

It's that pesky nanowro thing...

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

I was amused to read about someone who was instigating their own NaDruWriMo event the other day. National Drunken Writing Month ...

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

National drunken WRITER I could do... but my drunken writings turn into desperate mood pieces, "with car alarms howling in the neon-rain night," and suchlike

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there's a market for that sort of thing, you know.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

There is, but it doesn't pay hellish well! Although the folk who originally published with me in small press magazines have mostly started selling novels and are finally in line for some proper money. I just couldn't hack the dozen years of living in garrets.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

No. My friend golden_lotus is trying to make it as a writer (in the US) and it's not easy.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Hmm, one of my friend's had a very well reviewed fantasy trilogy published, which is pretty much as good as you can expect, and he still can't give up his full-time job.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Really? Jeez :-/

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

You're a pro, man! :D

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

My definition of a professional writer is someone who gets paid to write - which fits me, on and off, for the last 15 years or so...

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Cool. Might I ask in what capacity you get paid to write?

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Originally as a technical writer, training courses, advertising copywriting, company newsletters, manuals.... Whatever paid the bills. For the last few years mostly proposals of one sort or another, and whatever a communciations manager writes - briefs, press releases, stakeholder pieces.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Wow, cool.

It belatedly occurs to me that for much of the last six years, I've also been paid to write - but to do other things too.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've kind of interspersed account management, and consultancy, and a little bit of management when I couldn't avoid it. But I STILL describe myself as a writer...