I thought I read somewhere...
Jul. 24th, 2007 08:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ann_leckie...that The 40 Year Old Virgin was a good, or at least enjoyable, movie.
Hmm. No accounting for taste, I suppose.
****
Conversation just now:
(Paidhi Boy, if not supervised, packs lunches that include cookies, juice, and applesauce. And nothing else. Other lunch options are hard boiled eggs and peanut butter, both of which he likes, but he'd rather just pack cookies and applesauce.)
Me: "Did you pack you lunch? Is there bologna in your lunch?"
Paidhi Boy: "I packed my lunch!"
Me: "Is there bologna in it?"
Paidhi Boy: "Are you going to check?"
*****
Was reading this article praising editors. Which, you know, I can get behind. Then I came to this part:
Um? I guess every writer's process and feelings are different, but...I'll buy godlike and omnipotent, skewed sort of. After all, it's your story, you can make it whatever you want to make it. Egotistical and unchecked as the wail of a baby? Dude, I don't send those ones out. I fix them or I trash them.
I might buy the egotistical--really, it's pretty presumptuous to slap a bunch of words down on paper and assume that not only will some stranger you mail them to want to read them, but might also pay you real money for them. Even if you're really, really good I'm sure there's ego involved. But, you know, that unchecked stuff--it's not likely to be very good. Which, you know, was the writer's point, but I guess I have a different attitute towards how writing works.
I don't mean to be snarking on the article, like I said I'm all for praising good editors. Just I got to that one bit and went "whaaa?"
***
It is now more or less official--two thousand words into a story that I'm not supposed to be writing because I'm supposed to be using my few hours free a day to work on the novel. Oh, well, at least I'll have something else in circulation soon. (For varying values of "soon" since revision can take a long time, depending on the story, and this feels like one of those.)
Hmm. No accounting for taste, I suppose.
****
Conversation just now:
(Paidhi Boy, if not supervised, packs lunches that include cookies, juice, and applesauce. And nothing else. Other lunch options are hard boiled eggs and peanut butter, both of which he likes, but he'd rather just pack cookies and applesauce.)
Me: "Did you pack you lunch? Is there bologna in your lunch?"
Paidhi Boy: "I packed my lunch!"
Me: "Is there bologna in it?"
Paidhi Boy: "Are you going to check?"
*****
Was reading this article praising editors. Which, you know, I can get behind. Then I came to this part:
The act of writing is godlike, omnipotent, infantile. Your piece is a statement delivered from on high, a pronouncement ex cathedra, as egotistical and unchecked as the wail of a baby.
Um? I guess every writer's process and feelings are different, but...I'll buy godlike and omnipotent, skewed sort of. After all, it's your story, you can make it whatever you want to make it. Egotistical and unchecked as the wail of a baby? Dude, I don't send those ones out. I fix them or I trash them.
I might buy the egotistical--really, it's pretty presumptuous to slap a bunch of words down on paper and assume that not only will some stranger you mail them to want to read them, but might also pay you real money for them. Even if you're really, really good I'm sure there's ego involved. But, you know, that unchecked stuff--it's not likely to be very good. Which, you know, was the writer's point, but I guess I have a different attitute towards how writing works.
I don't mean to be snarking on the article, like I said I'm all for praising good editors. Just I got to that one bit and went "whaaa?"
***
It is now more or less official--two thousand words into a story that I'm not supposed to be writing because I'm supposed to be using my few hours free a day to work on the novel. Oh, well, at least I'll have something else in circulation soon. (For varying values of "soon" since revision can take a long time, depending on the story, and this feels like one of those.)