In Praise of Writers

Well, this certainly is nice to hear:

You’ve given yourself a challenge when you decide to write a book.

I think it’s the art form that looks easiest. After all “it’s just words”; how hard can it be. That very simplicity is the challenge. It’s just words. No pictures, no sound, no costumes, no actors, no musicians, no frame in a gallery, no special effects wizards at Lucasfilm to build on your artistry to make it complete. Just words.

Every time you read one of my posts about nitwiticisms, or I sound cranky as hell, remember, I would not have a job doing work I love were it not for you.

We, the non-writer people of publishing, don’t say that often enough. We certainly add value. We certainly help you. In the end however, this entire industry is an upside down triangle and the point we all balance on is your writing.

We need your words, and we need you to write them. Don’t ever forget that.

From the acid tongue of La Snark herself no less.

Man, ain’t it easy to run ourselves down? I do it every time I sit at the keyboard. This is crap, my plotting stinks, my dialogue is about as lifelike as cardboard.

I suck.

Therese has had a bad week of writing, and mine wasn’t much better. But the one thing we have going for us is that we’re doing it. Not talking about it, not dreaming about it, but doing it. And so are you.

We don’t give ourselves enough credit for playing the game if we haven’t won it yet by making a sale. And it’s easy to feed our insecurities. But La Snark is right. Our visions and our talents support an entire industry and many tangential ones. They’d be nothing without us.

Remember that.

Now if you will excuse me, I have some writing to do. Maybe you do, too. Go change the world with your words.

Photo by Librakat.

Kathleen Bolton

Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She writes under a variety of pseudonyms, including Ani Bolton.

She has written two novels as Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter–both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President’s teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins, and Tamara Blake, for the novel Slumber.

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