British journalist Julie Burchill said:
I’m in one of those hard-writing phases where I work an ungodly number of hours every day, fiction gushin’ out my head, and I get pretty self-congratulatory about the number of pages I generate in a day’s time. Burchill’s insight made me blink when I came across it today. I’m reminded that I do what I do, not just because I want to, but because I need to. Now’s not the time to think about the marketplace, the agent, the college tuition this book needs to generate. First and foremost, I have to put down the words I want and need to put down for my own sanity.
And while we're bowing to the wisdom of the Queen of English Journalism, here's a great article by Burchill.
Writing is more than anything a compulsion, like some people wash their hands thirty times a day for fear of awful consequences if they do not. It pays a whole lot better than this type of compulsion, but is no more heroic.
I’m in one of those hard-writing phases where I work an ungodly number of hours every day, fiction gushin’ out my head, and I get pretty self-congratulatory about the number of pages I generate in a day’s time. Burchill’s insight made me blink when I came across it today. I’m reminded that I do what I do, not just because I want to, but because I need to. Now’s not the time to think about the marketplace, the agent, the college tuition this book needs to generate. First and foremost, I have to put down the words I want and need to put down for my own sanity.
And while we're bowing to the wisdom of the Queen of English Journalism, here's a great article by Burchill.
Comments
Good thing my parents didn't hear about that when I was in my teens and obsessively filling notebooks!