11 March 2012

Shut up and write, and then don't say anything stupid about it.


I hate it when writers write about writing. No one cares. Shut up and write.

But I just have to say this one thing now that I have become as qualified to do so as I ever will. I don't mean any hard feelings here to the many people who have drawn this comparison, but:

Writing a book is IN NO WAY like having a baby.

The process of writing is not like being pregnant. The act of publishing is not even remotely like giving birth. I'd explain, but do I really need to? Could I just mention some general concepts like vomit, 20-40 pounds, acne, incontinence, sutures, etc., and assume everyone is tracking?

The only thing bookgrowing and babygrowing have in common is that both take longer than it feels like they should, kind of like baseball games, college, making pastry, toilet training, grocery shopping, wrapping Christmas presents, digging up dahlia tubers, middle school band concerts, Finding Nemo, Lent, water boiling, adolescence, parades, driving to Fort Wayne, and travailing toward the end of this sentence.

It's a post! A miracle every time.

3 comments:

  1. Middle school band concerts!! Ahahaha!

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  2. OK, but one time we played this really awesome song called The Light Eternal . . . seriously, it was so good.

    It might have been high school.

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  3. I love how Ivan Denisovich made it into the sidebar. :P

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Being nice is nice.