Friday, August 7, 2009

Fear and Loathing

20090807 papercast

7 comments:

Strikethru said...

Well, the traditional publishing industry is all about telling us WE SUCK and WE'RE DELUSIONAL and DON'T BOTHER just to keep down the deluge of submissions, which probably has the effect of discouraging neurotic writers with potential, while leaving the delusional sociopath hacks entirely undeterred.

As Charlie Brown would say, *sigh.*

Except the typosphere? We don't give a crap. We're publishing anyway. Try and stop us! We'll brain you with an SM9! (well, maybe not, but I do sleep a little better knowing one is in the house).

Olivander said...

I know my Silent Type piece is not as good as it could be because I bashed it out in the back of my car over my lunch hour the day before the deadline.

Mike Speegle said...

I have no such excuse. What I submitted was the first thing I've ever written that has gone through more than 0 revisions.

Now whether or not it's better for it is a matter of debate.

Word Verification: chnedu- Cthulhu's younger brother. "Ned" for short.

Elizabeth H. said...

Cheryl...you now have me thinking about the Galaxie that typically lives by my bed in a whole new light.... Intruders would never see *that* coming. I'm picturing the old Daffy Duck cartoons where he's smacked so hard his beak goes flat and he stands there vibrating until he falls over....

Monda said...

Technically, every time you hit the button to send a blog post out, you're publishing. Unless you delete it, it's out there forever. Additionally, anyone with an RSS feed is syndicated.

We are all published, syndicated columnists with self-imposed deadlines and we do this all this all the time without ever thinking about it. Much scarier than print publishing by far.

Anyone feel better?

Mike Speegle said...

Monda FTW.

mpclemens said...

Even if you delete it, it's been cached and stored someplace. The shoulder-angels don't worry about the blogging, it's trivial stuff. But the writing, oh yes, that's serious and therefore, scary.

I think we're all so self-deprecating because of the many ways it's possible to express yourself, language is still the most personal. Why else are all of us mortified to re-read all those angsty teenage journal entries, and feel that the world we be better off if they were tossed in a heap and burned? Perhaps the fear is that we're still writing that way, and that in 10/20/30 years we'll look back and cringe and the awfulness of it all.