I have no minefield to offer for your cruising pleasure today. No reports of mean-spirited smackdowns, no views on various hatchet jobs, not even a pithy observation about some other blogger's snitfest in progress. They're out there, but they're nothing new, just variations of the same old high-school-quality posture, sneer, lord, flame, complain, slam, and return fire.
Maybe I'm just getting too old for this nonsense, but it does get boring after a while, and I've been watching internet snits come and blow for seven years now. Seems like these days if I even glimpse mud being slung or trains being wrecked, I just click on that helpful little red box with the white X in the upper right hand corner.
It's probably Jordan's fault. She's a terrible influence on me.
I'm also feeling pretty Zen about the industry. It could be better, but it's not like the moon's turned to blood and the Four Horsemen are riding in just yet. Rookies are still signing while old pros are still selling. New novels continue to ship every month. Talent keeps emerging. I see many familiar names on the shelves at the bookstore whenever I go. It's not grinding to a halt. We're not all doomed.
Writers insist on reading, and writing. We talk and trade info and cheer and commiserate. We're not all two-legged piranha. We see a book dump with The Da Vinci Code mass market edition parked next to the refrigerated milk case in our grocery stores, and we roll our eyes, but we also wonder what it would be like to be a Dan Brown. Our industry is a sprawling city filled with all manner of shiny high rises and condos and wonderful old buildings and little efficiencies. I don't believe any of us who like living here are willing to run out of town just yet. We'd just like more than a one-room apartment overlooking the Dumpster in the alley, if possible.
I try to write interesting, spontaneous things on the back of my old StarDoc bookmarks (which I have been unloading on most of you poor unsuspecting giveaway winners for like a year now.) Today I wrote this: Write like there is no tomorrow, dream like it never ends.
What would you write on the back of your bookmark today?
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Why dream for just yourself when you can write it down for others to enjoy?
ReplyDeleteI'd be sending it too the author, but here goes.
ReplyDelete"May your muses forever ignite and illuminate your imagination."
“I know what you’re doing, and if you don’t stop I’m calling the police.”
ReplyDeleteI've seen some absolutely NASTY things since I've crossed the line from aspiring to published. Things that five years ago would have made my jaw drop.
ReplyDeleteBut I've also seen some very wonderful things. I'm trying to focus on THOSE more.
The nasty things can be interesting. I love confrontation, but it gets tiring. Especially when it seems to be the same people allllll the time.
So what would I write? what goes around comes around. the good as well as the bad.
"Please buy this book so I can sell enough for my publisher to buy the next."
ReplyDeleteI'm happy with a bookmark I received from one of my favorite authors:
ReplyDelete"Your dreams CAN come true!"
Sound familiar?
Today? "Never give up; keep learning."
ReplyDeleteThe one I keep below my monitor? "Always be a little bit of Rebel." It came from an author whose voice is cooler than she thinks.
"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - T.S. Eliot
ReplyDeleteAnd I almost sprayed coffee all over my laptop when I read "the moon hasn't turned to blood". It was a near thing.
I've been writing, "May you run out of life before you run out of dreams."
ReplyDeleteBefore that I was using, "A writer writes," Billy Crystal's line in Throw Momma from the Train.
Never, never, never give up.
ReplyDeleteOh give me a plot
ReplyDeleteWhere the action is hot
And Mars and Jupiter play
And sometimes it's heard
That space is all blurred
But time travel clears the way.
The pen is mightier than the sword
ReplyDeleteBut a landing a good schielhau is almost as good as sex.
Hmmm - maybe the line from Galaxy Quest: Never give up; never surrender!
ReplyDeleteOr: The man who has no imagination has no wings.
Or maybe: Make no small plans for they have no power to stir the soul.
But my husband just handed me a very interesting one:
Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.
"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity" Albert Einstein
ReplyDelete"Put your writing in your life and your life in your writing but don't make your writing your life."
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of good quotes here - I'm going to write them down for inspiration. The one that went through my brain as I was reading was, "A dream is a wish your heart makes."
ReplyDeleteToday? Today I would write: "You mean I got out of bed for this?"
ReplyDeleteNot a good day. Ask me again tomorrow.
In the same vein as Shiloh's up above:
ReplyDeleteKarma happens.
Or, when I'm in a better mood:
For the eagle, and for those who watch it soar.
"Be yourself as hard as you can."
ReplyDeleteThat is all.
Since pj already took the Galaxy Quest line, mine would be, "Live long and prosper."
ReplyDeleteSo I'm not in a particularly original mood right now. I did, however, just finish having a snitfest with myself (over at my place) on inviting folks over for dinner who subsequently act like jackasses. Diners behaving badly?
"Have fun and play. Be a kid."
ReplyDeleteI'm in that sort of mood lately.
Wolverine.
"Don't pray for an easy life. Pray for courage." - Rita Mae Brown
ReplyDeleteIt's been that kind of day.
Sure, blame me. :-P If I had to sign something today it would be: Don't worry. Be happy. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI've always loved "The hell with the art of the possible. Watch this!"
ReplyDeleteWhich is from the E.B. White essay "Sootfall and Fallout." He was saying it in response to the phrase, "Diplomacy is the art of the possible," but I think it can apply to so many things.
And this morning as I was making the kid's lunches I thought, "Life is like a stampede, if you keep moving you'll make it."
Only, I don't really know if that's true about stampedes or life for that matter.