Saturday, February 7, 2015

Lazy Ass Writers

This cartoon was inspired by a thread I was following in a writer's group on Facebook. Apparently if you follow this one dude's method of writing, you should be able to crank out several books a year. His secret? Discipline. And anyone not putting out at least two books a year is lazy.

Of course that's all bullshit. Everyone works at a different pace. Personally, I can't write every day. Not because I'm lazy, it's just that I'd end up getting too far ahead of my ideas. Stories need time to percolate and thicken into something real. Otherwise you're just making things up as you go along, and you can't build anything of value that way.

I always wonder what makes people decide to stand up and tell people, 'THIS IS HOW YOU SHOULD DO THINGS'. I find it everywhere, but it seems especially prevalent in the world of online publishing. It's one thing to be asked, 'How did you do it?'  But to stand on a table and announce, 'This is how I do it, and you should too,' that's a whole 'nother level of arrogance.

I would like to finish things here by stating I still don't know what the hell I'm doing as far as being an indie writer goes. I'm a little more savvy than I was, say, four months ago, but I still haven't earned enough to buy a bag of chips.