By: Bruce Black,
on 10/28/2007
Over at The Green Knight's Chapel last week, Nick Green, the author of The Cat Kin, had this to say about patience: If there is one quality or trait that I think all writers should have, it is not word power or wisdom or soul or wit. It is patience. Patience in abundance. Oceans of it. Great galactic nebula-spanning clouds of patience.And Nick's right on the mark. We do need to learn patience ... Read the rest of this post
By: Sophie Brookover,
on 5/15/2007
It's Spring, and a girl's fancy turns to the next season of delights on television. The NY Times' Virginia Huffernan is covering the networks' Upfronts at the artsbeat blog, and last week, EW.com published a preview of what's to come for the 2007-2008. Sadly, it looks like longtime Pop favorite Veronica Mars is on the chopping block. However, The Bionic Woman on NBC (check the preview here) looks like a worthy successor to Alias, Terminator 2, and Battlestar Galactica all rolled into one. In other words, my TiVo is set!
I think you've put the drive for outside validation in good perspective, Bruce. It can only be one of the goals we keep in play; others, like exploring our imagination, honing craft, creating art, are reason enough to stay enthralled with our pursuit.
Jack,Exploring our imagination and honing our craft, as you say, is the key to staying enthralled... Thanks for putting it so well.
Wise words, Bruce; a more measured response than my somewhat primal scream of rage! I was going to add a postscript to mine, along the lines of writing for its own sake being more important, and the reason anyone really writes... but decided to save it until someone else said it first (and I had a feeling it would be Bruce!). I'm patient 360 days of the year; but there are those other days...!
Thanks, Nick. Waiting is an inevitable part of this business, as you point out so well, and I imagine that we all have days of rage. (I know that I do!) The key to warding off impatience and rage, I suspect, can be found in what Jack said about "staying enthralled..." How to stay enthralled... that's the crux of the matter. It's a question of balance for me, striving to preserve that spell of