Today, I’ve decided to publish a two-parter on life philosophy (cue the angels singing.) Occasionally I’m struck with truths so important that I must remark upon them, and, having remarked upon them, my husband often points out that these truths would make good blog posts. So you, dear reader of my blog, are about to benefit from some truth. Read on!
Part I: The First Truth
You know, in a discussion with my partner-in-misbegotten-life-choices, we both realized how very underrated this particular personality philosophy is: Don’t be an A-hole.
Just … don’t be an A-hole.
Honestly, it covers all manner of social situations. Do you know someone who’s having a rough day? Don’t be an A-hole to them. Perhaps even say or do something supportive. At the very least, remain neutral and quietly back away from the sad person. Just don’t make things worse.
It’s amazing to me—no, really, actually amazement-inducing—how many people completely lose the subtle talent of not being an A-hole at work. For example, the job I’m in now was very recently occupied by a young woman who was much more interested in winning arguments than she was in actually doing her job. (Which was writing, by the way.) She’d been placeholding my position for three months before she traipsed off to pursue her art (which, you know, more power to her! I’m all about the pursuit of art!) and she had not written much at all to show for her time there. Instead, she’d spent her days—you guessed it—being pretty much an A-hole. Blustering and trying to be sparkly instead of sitting down at her computer to write. Which is what she’d been hired to do.
Honestly, I’m not complaining about her, because her A-holeness landed me a job. And just by being generally nice and working on my projects, I’m already looking pretty rosy in comparison, so really: “Thanks, girl who held onto my job until I could come and get it!”
Part II: The Second Truth
If you want to be a writer, you must write.
No, seriously.
People seem to be graduating from some program of study out there that says writing is all about dropping amazing idea bombs and then letting minions pound away on the keyboard to flesh it all out. But guess what?
Writers actually do the keyboard pounding. Writers research their topics, double-check their facts, put one word down in front of the other until the work is done. Then comes the editing. Lots and lots of editing. And the suggestions and requests from managers (in my case) or outside editors (also in my case.) All of which begets more editing.
Writing is difficult.
Writing is looking at the same passages so many times they stop making sense, and then putting them aside to rest, and then reading over them once more. If you’re lucky, with some talent, you’ll notice that when you revisit your published works much, much later, you find (much to your delight) that your work is actually readable.
But if you don’t think that writing is hard work, really, actually hard work, then you’re not a writer. That’s a fact. And I’m not being an A-hole by saying that.
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By the way, I’m still working on that last Mermaid Underground novella. I thought I had finished my latest revision, but then I realized I needed to do something about Sparrow. So I’m working on that.
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