Comments on: Baby, It’s Cold Outside

By: highwayscribery

highwayscribery — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:21:10 +0000

The book has a special place in our culture. The electronic offerings are merely derivatives of the same. The big dream of a big deal has slowly faded with maturity and all the bad news has failed to dissuade me from a general passion for reading and making literature. We are legion. There is an economic crisis going on. That affects NEW books, but old books can be revisited and re-read for free in one’s own library. The industry measures books sold, not books read, and so there is a bit of disconnect between passion for literature and markets in times like these.

Don’t worry (or worry!) Wall Street will cook up another series of b.s. products and a bubble will balloon and people will blow money they don’t have once more. Some of that will be on books.

It’s the American way.

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:10:25 +0000

P.S. Sorry about the typos. Just saw them.

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:09:29 +0000

I just keep writing. And I check in with twenty-somethings here and there quite a bit, as well as late teens types like my younger daughter. There are a lot of readers. Book readers. I don’t know what the hell is going on, really, with all this.

I do know that I have two guys in their twenties in my office on a reading list (they asked me to tell them what to read – t hey’re MBA guys, and they love what I’ve given them, and have asked ‘what next’? (I’m Southern, so I started them out with All the King’s Men – then we talked about my idea of the perfect Southern Novel – which they’d have no idea about as they are from Michigan and Pennsylvania, and i told them The Moviegoer, but to read Camus’s The Stranger first, and then we’d talk about exitentialism in literarature.

My point is, I think people do read and do want to read, but they want to read what’s worth their time to read – what resonates. And I’m doing my absolute damnedest to do my part to keep excellent novels in the hands of those who will go on to read more.

As a writer, I definitely want an audience when my turn arrives. that, and there’s no better food for the long-term sustenance of the soul than fiction that takes you out somewhere and brings you back again, changed.

By: Cara Swann

Cara Swann — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:01:42 +0000

I never thought publishing had much to do with the art of writing. It’s a good thing, because I’d never write if it was only with the goal of publication as motivation.

By: Susan at Stony River

Susan at Stony River — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:33:10 +0000

I just keep writing. I hate worrying over something I can’t really control in any way—so, ‘keep writing’ is all I can do, and I’ll worry about its format and its profits or its doom when each is finished.

By: Northwriter

Northwriter — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:52:50 +0000

My first novel just went out on submission yesterday! There are no guarantees. Did a quit my day job? Yes! I did that two years ago so I could write. I am focusing on what I perceive to have control over–the writing.

By: August

August — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:40:30 +0000

I hate the motherfuckers.

By: David R. Slayton

David R. Slayton — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:36:15 +0000

I keep writing, everyday; and remember that I don’t do this for the money yet.

Then I drink.

By: Marty

Marty — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:52:33 +0000

I’ve been reading and enjoying your posts for six months. I do not envy agents. You must pay close attention to the industry.

I can depend on my agent to worry about the business side while I turn off the noise and focus on writing my best stories. I remind myself that life is the subject of my stories. My stories are not the subject of my life.

And I remind myself to be grateful that my family has a home and to try to help someone who has less. That keeps me warm.

Thank you again, Betsy, for investing time in this blog.

By: Janet

Janet — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:46:33 +0000

As a writer, I just assume the same old advice still applies: don’t give up your day job.