Writers get obsessed with a project and lock the doors and sit and work at it, like animals in a leg trap trying to chew through the leg, which is not good strategy. My advice is to get out of the house and take a walk, a good first cure for the depression that hits after you’ve been working for a year and it dawns on you that your book is not “Huckleberry Finn” but you must finish it anyway because the publisher’s generous advance has been spent on a new pair of shoes for the baby and she has worn a hole in them already, so you press on — on — on — though it strikes you that the world has a great many books already and does it need yours? And the readers you most want (youth) are fixated on screens, not on paper. This is so depressing you want to tie a rock to your ankle and jump in the Mississippi, and if you remembered how to tie the knots that could hold a rock you might, but a long walk can bring you around.
On The Job
May 24th, 2007 · 2 Comments
by Kassia Krozser
File Under: Quote of the Week
2 responses so far ↓
Susan Helene Gottfried // May 25, 2007 at 4:43 pm
I prefer bike rides to walking, myself, and frankly, I’m up for the challenge of bringing youth back from screens to paper.
But that’s me and I’m a little bit left of center. Or West of Mars, depending on which map you’re looking at.
Christine Allen-Yazzie // May 26, 2007 at 8:41 am
I want to know who these authors are who get an advance big enough to buy baby shoes. ; ) Seriously, you don’t have to torture yourself with walks and bikes…get an inverter, make sure your car battery’s in good shape, pack a little table with your laptop, and go camping. No need for locked doors or that formidable practice, exercise.
For me, focused (short-term/a day to two weeks) crunches (i.e., leg-chewing, if in the wilderness or indoors) have been very useful. If I were to get up to walk around or anything else, I’d find excuses to stop writing, and I might not return to the project for…let’s not incriminate ourselves, *quite a while*.