The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 1 May 2009

Writers' Digest, October 2004, pages 26 to 33, has a collection of short "nuggets of wisdom" related to getting published. Maria Schneider is the author of the compilation. Take a deep breath, and here we go:

"You write the book you're driven to write, and you really can't do more than that. It's a leap of faith, the entire book is a leap of faith, and not everybody is going to take it with me." Alice Sebold

How do you know what people want to read? Actually, you don't. You write the best book you can, the story that grips you, the poem that is singing in your heart -- and then you find out. Of course, every day when you wake up and get out of bed, you make that same leap of faith -- driven into it by the passage of time, no doubt, but still -- we always do things and then find out how the rest of the world will react. It would be a very strange world indeed if the world reacted and then we did things, wouldn't it? Life is a risky business, but it's the only game around, so go ahead and play it!

Oh, and write.