Some Food for Thought

Interesting (well, interesting to me) tidbit from the 3/29 Publisher's Marketplace "Publisher's Lunch" daily email:

"Kate Long's The Bad Mother's Handbook has lived up to expectations after being sold to Picador for a "substantial" six-figures by Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge & White. After three weeks the novel has gone to the top of UK bestseller lists, and is still gaining strength. According to the Telegraph, the publisher now has four books under contract. The mother of two tells the newspaper, 'I can't believe what's happened - it's amazing. I'm just a table scribbler, really. I wrote most of it in eight weeks, between 7.30 and 9 at night, depending on whether there was anything good on the telly. And then I spent a year revising it.'"

I know, I know. There is a certain hype level to this little soundbyte. But that doesn't negate the kernel of good advice in it. Write a little every day. It will get you much farther being hard on yourself because you can't write for hours and hours at a stretch when you have a job, kids, etc.

I sometimes think that folks who don't start out with a serious, yearning need to be writers with a capital W often have a better attitude toward it than the rest of us, because they aren't so tense about it. The stakes don't feel so high to them. This allows them to loosen up, which is good for creativity, and for making progress in your work.

This is not to say there's anything wrong with you because you haven't managed to get a six-figure advance on a novel you wrote in a year and eight weeks at your kitchen table! There is not! The point of this little anecdote is to inspire you, not make you feel crappy about yourself. The point is do relax, and just do a little bit of writing when you can, regularly. It really, really helps.