A decade in the making…
By Celeste Ng
image credit: Flickr - Rennett Stowe
During my should-be-writing years, I thought about my novel all the time. Increasingly, these were not happy or satisfying thoughts. My “novel” (which had started to wear its own air quotes in my head) became something closer to enemy than lover. A person and his creative work exist in a relationship very much like a marriage: When it’s good, it’s very good, and when it’s bad, it’s ugly. And when it’s been bad for a long, long time, you start to think about divorce.
Daniels’s essay has been making the rounds on the internets, and reactions have varied from “So true!” to “Quit yer whining!” Read the full post at Slate, and tell us: Do you sympathize with the plight of the 10-year novelist? Is this just par for the course? Or do 10-year novelists just need to learn to buckle down?
I’m all for the ten year novel! I’m all for the twenty year novel! (unless I represent you, in which case sooner would be better, please).
Yes, not writing is the hardest part! This is just what I needed to hear to keep going.
[...] maybe Tuesday’s post on the 10-year novel got you down. Here’s some encouragement: lit site The Rumpus is introducing a new occasional [...]