Friday, January 5

Q: How do you stay so cheerful?

That would get me down, compiling a list like "Calendar Year 2006," typing it, converting if from .doc to .htm. Just reading it is depressing.

But reading it again and again. Reading it several times.

A: I'm doing that in two books at once, now. HEAP and SQUIBS.

It's relentless hammer blows of disappointment.

Blow after blow.

All the good things that seemed to be happening, in HEAP, didn't happen, or haven't happened yet.

I'm three books further along, and nothing has happened.

It's hard not to get discouraged.

Also, there's a lot of repetition. Necessarily.

If the books were published, I could say, see HEAP.

But since they aren't, I have to write about the same subject again. And try to be fresh. Try to come at it with fresh eyes.

Q: When Brenda comes home and asks you what you did all day, what do you say?

A: I say, "I got some writing done."

When she wakes up in the morning, I am at my computer, typing.

When she goes to bed at night, I am at my computer, typing.

I spent as much of the day as I could, typing.

Typing up a book I wrote in longhand, converting it to html, and posting it on the worldwide web.

Writing a new book, on the computer, converting it to html, and posting it on the worldwide web.

I've got a bunch of stuff out, so I don't write so many query letters and proposals. But it will all come back at once, and that is sometimes depressing.

It seems hopeless.

Watching other writers talk about their work, at book fairs, seeing them heralded for what they did, celebrated, while I can't seem to break through, gets one down.

It's daunting.

It's meant to be daunting.

Deal with it.

What are you going to do? Complain?

Turn bitter, sell out, or quit?

Buck up, son. We've got a lot to get through here. Don't let them see you falter.