In my fantasy I'm standing before a huge, appreciative audience. I've just read chapter one from my Pulitzer Prize winning novel, and some earnest person raises a hand and asks what advice I have for young writers. I smile, my teeth a brilliant white, and say, Give up. Right now.
For me, writing, while gratifying, liberating, and exhilarating, is mostly a stinkfest of rejections, no money, and people saying how lucky I am not to have to work. Yeah, I'm bitter. If someone had warned me how hard it was going to be, I would have pursued my career as a ballerina (according to my mom I was pretty good.)
But here I am, and here you are, so we might as well make the best of it. I even have a treat for you: in addition to my fiction and poetry, I've included a section devoted to the words of other writers - their views on the process, their struggles and wisdom - because in my other fantasy, all the quality writers unite to form an unstoppable coalition where integrity and finesse prevail, and all the super crappy books stop being made into movies.
Come on, it's brighter inside....
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