Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Literary Canoe


I feel like this guy in this boat. My agent is a wise man. I respect his opinion. He's guided the careers of some people that I truly respect. Coming down from the high of making the LA Times Bestsellers List, he e-mailed me with some sage advice. It's advice he's given me before: If I want a career, I need to put myself on a schedule where I produce a book a year.
I promised him a book last year and tried my best. I didn't deliver. I tried, but things like earning money to pay rent and bills kept getting in the way. I know this is no excuse, but it does limit the amount of time I get to write, right? Or, you, in internet land, feel free to call me on my crap. Regardless, I've made a resolve: I may not write a book a year, but I'm going to get a book to him THIS year!

6 comments:

Jamie Asaye FitzGerald said...

Wow! Congratulations. And where did you find that illustration?

Liz Dwyer said...

You will get your book done this year. You have 8 months left! But, yes, paying the rent. My goal is to find a job that doesn't require 60-70 hours a week. And, I figure, if I quit my blog, that's a whole lot of time I could be spending on writing. But, I like my blog too much to quit it. And, I like your blog too much as well, so I hope you don't abandon yours.

By the way, I'm finally taking the the novel writing class.

Cheryl said...

A book a year seems insane, unless you're a romance novelist writing basically the same book each year. Your books have been pretty research-intensive, so I can't imagine churning them out that fast. But maybe you could compromise and put Fabio on the cover. Showing his butt, of course.

Anonymous said...

Or Fabio showing his abs.

Sigh , there is always a compromise between paying the rent and living the dream eh ?

Don Cummings said...

Just write a book a year! You can do that. Just do it. Do it.

Cephas said...

I don't know, that seems like a pretty stiff deadline... I know some authors churn out stuff annually but they're usually not worth reading. Others do well to get something out in seven or more years. It seems to me two years makes sense.

Who's your agent by the way?

Cheers!
Peter
www.peedub.com