Alexander Ferrick's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
Beating My Head into the Wall
In the time since my last blog post, the deadline for the book I plugged in it, CHESS, has passed. CHESS's name has now changed to The Crystal Helix, and i hesitate to promise a release date, as my editor and I have very nearly come to blows about how this story will be told.
This brings me to the subject of this post: the business of writing. Not the art, not the writing, but the editing, polishing, grinding, and selling of writing. Why is it that the more prolific I feel myself to become in the expression of my art, the more dismal the business venture of my self-published work looks?
Even as my friends continue to rant to their friends about HACK3R, I now have multiple manuscripts piled up on my editor's desk, and even more ideas clogged in my head, struggling to get out simultaneously. I find myself feeling a little unfulfilled, like there should be someone else to tell the world about my stories. For as fond as I usually am of tooting my own horn, I find it hard to do that about my writing. The writing is too personal, and too important to brag about, even if that bragging is true, but how do I convince anyone else of the merit of my work, when I find the act of selling it sickening.
I don't just want people to read my work. I want them to want to read it. That, I think, is the fundamental problem with being an artist.
This brings me to the subject of this post: the business of writing. Not the art, not the writing, but the editing, polishing, grinding, and selling of writing. Why is it that the more prolific I feel myself to become in the expression of my art, the more dismal the business venture of my self-published work looks?
Even as my friends continue to rant to their friends about HACK3R, I now have multiple manuscripts piled up on my editor's desk, and even more ideas clogged in my head, struggling to get out simultaneously. I find myself feeling a little unfulfilled, like there should be someone else to tell the world about my stories. For as fond as I usually am of tooting my own horn, I find it hard to do that about my writing. The writing is too personal, and too important to brag about, even if that bragging is true, but how do I convince anyone else of the merit of my work, when I find the act of selling it sickening.
I don't just want people to read my work. I want them to want to read it. That, I think, is the fundamental problem with being an artist.
