Is a Famous Writer Better than a Great One?

Being published, paid well, and famous has nothing to do with being a good writer. I myself know people who are excellent at the craft, and have nothing to show for it but the praise and admiration of their friends. The unexpected has much more to do with, for example, Steig Larsson’s success than the quality of his writing.

As I sat here listening to jazz saxophone while reading about what your story is about, I knew I had to buy it. So I did and very much look forward to reading it. I will connect with you further by reading you.

Thanks for this little piece of wisdom. Such a helpful change in perspective.

The connection I went for is pathetic fallacy. I hope it comes across:

It was so dark outside that the massive windows merely reflected his own face back at him. He wasn’t really looking at anything other than himself, in any case. He took in the pale complexion and the slight movement of the skin under his right eye. It had been twitching on and off for the last few hours. He pinched his cheeks and rubbed them to give himself an artificial healthy glow. He looked at his hair for the hundredth time and moved a strand a minuscule amount higher on his forehead. Better. Only his fringe was showing under his beanie hat and the peak of dark hair was slicked with grooming product. He flicked open his mobile again but the unwelcome sight of an empty screen made the knot in his stomach more apparent.

He lent forward and cupped a hand around his eye and pressed his hand onto the cold glass. Nothing but the orange glow bouncing off the slicks of water pooled on the Tarmac of the car park. He looked back at the Formica table and the coated cardboard cup, beads of water still clustered on the straw which was poking up. He daren’t eat before she arrived, that would spoil the date. The faint tap on the window startled him slightly and he twisted round to see splats of rain starting once again to smear the windows. His fists had made a ball. Now she wouldn’t want him to walk her home, she’d definitely just phone for her dad to pick her up, no chance of a hasty kiss.

Then the buzz. He fumbled with the phone case. Finally, she’d be on her way. The knot in his stomach blossomed and burned and his throat went dry. He fought back tears of anger and humiliation as he snapped back the phone case and stared out through his own warped reflection into the wet bleakness of the night beyond the windows.

Time up.
Inspiration: I wanted to have a go at pathetic fallacy. Connecting the emotions of the character to their surroundings.as so dark outside that the massive windows merely reflected his own face back at him. He wasn’t really looking at anything other than himself, in any case. He took in the pale complexion and the slight movement of the skin under his right eye. It had been twitching on and off for the last few hours. He pinched his cheeks and rubbed them to give himself an artificial healthy glow. He looked at his hair for the hundredth time and moved a strand a minuscule amount higher on his forehead. Better. Only his fringe was showing under his beanie hat and the peak of dark hair was slicked with grooming product. He flicked open his mobile again but the unwelcome sight of an empty screen made the knot in his stomach more apparent.

He lent forward and cupped a hand around his eye and pressed his hand onto the cold glass. Nothing but the orange glow bouncing off the slicks of water pooled on the Tarmac of the car park. He looked back at the Formica table and the coated cardboard cup, beads of water still clustered on the straw which was poking up. He daren’t eat before she arrived, that would spoil the date. The faint tap on the window startled him slightly and he twisted round to see splats of rain starting once again to smear the windows. His fists had made a ball. Now she wouldn’t want him to walk her home, she’d definitely just phone for her dad to pick her up, no chance of a hasty kiss.

Then the buzz. He fumbled with the phone case. Finally, she’d be on her way. The knot in his stomach blossomed and burned and his throat went dry. He fought back tears of anger and humiliation as he snapped back the phone case and stared out through his own warped reflection into the wet bleakness of the night beyond the windows.

As your own late president Roosevelt said, ‘comparison is the thief of joy’

Lately I’ve been experiencing some writer’s block. I couldn’t write because I knew my story had veered away from its core somehow. So I needed to hear this today about connectedness. I needed to hear that. Thanks Joe.

My Practice:

As Emily tells me about her night with Sandra, I feel suddenly insecure. As though I’m losing Emily to her old life. To the life she had before me. And even though I feel lame because that’s just plain dumb, even though I tell myself I’m being a sap, I have to wonder when the hell I started caring.

Not about Emily. It doesn’t matter when I started caring about Emily because I just do. She matters, and that’s all I need to know. But I wondered when I started caring about everything else. About her friends, her parents, how they’ll react to us, to me. I’ve never cared about that before because I’ve always just shrugged that stuff of as supremely unimportant. But I’m suddenly wondering if maybe I did that because really it was important. Which makes no sense at all. But I’m haunted by thoughts like, do Emily and I fit together? Will she distance herself if others think we don’t?

Crap like that. When all I should care about is, Is Emily ready?

But I’m not worried about that right now because I know the answer to that question. She’s not yet. She’s only starting to get her life together now. And while she’s figuring stuff out, I know that no matter how long it takes, I’ll stand by her. I’ll wait. But what worries me is, what if I wait, and she’s never ready to be to be with me because they think shouldn’t be? I find that I can’t stand the thought that
Emily might pull away from me because of what other people might think. And
we’ve known each other only a short time, a span of five or six weeks now, and
she’s agonized over her choices because she’s afraid of what her parents will
take. What will Dr. Conners think of me, the goth king? I doubt I’m sort that
Emily has brought home before.

I push these thoughts away. She’s not bringing me home like that, I think. We’re only still just friends, no matter that both of us want more. In fact, I point out to myself in an effort to retain my stoic cool, she’s not bringing me home at all. She’s just telling me about her day.

I’m trying to be connected to this young guy but it’s hard to do. I’m writing a story about these two young people and I am gaining a great deal of admiration for young adult authors. It’s hard to remember back to that age.

Carl knew what his mother would say even before he told her he was going to Vanessa Hightower’s house to do homework and hangout. He had even considered telling her he was going somewhere else, but that seemed disloyal to Vanessa somehow and not the way he wanted to start a relationship. He didn’t think it out as clearly as I’ve written it because he was young, a senior in high school, and he didn’t really think much about the way he thought and felt, but he did know what his mother would say.

“I with you’d think twice before going to that Hightower place. The Hightowers care crazy, always have been, always will be.”

“Always have been, always will be,” he whispered to himself, not as an echo but in unison with his mother.

“Did you just mock me boy?” she said.

“No ma’am, I was just trying to remember what book I need to bring.”

“Well don’t plan on carrying too many books. I need the truck so you’ll have to take the moped.”

“Mom, the mope?”

“That or a bike or walk, or you could go catch one of the horse and ride over there.”

Carl pictured himself on each conveyance. He would look like a nerd on the moped but the bike was for little kids, and the horse, while probably the most romantic would have to be caught and saddled and he didn’t have time for all that. Walking was out. It was five miles to the Hightower property.

He soon was rolling up and down the hilly gravel drive to the Hightower house. He saw Vanessa on the porch holding a big hound by the collar. It was trying to jump and twist away, whimpering and yelping, but Vanessa stood strong and tall, in charge of the situation. She was regal, he thought, constant and unshakeable.

And what was he doing? How did he look? Like a moron he thought. He was steering the moped right down the middle of the path in order to avoid the ruts on each side. The gravel had been thinned out by rain and tires and muddy ruts ran almost a half foot deep in some places. The Hightowers weren’t know for maintaining their property well.

Vivaldi on NPR. Icicle drips running down the window pane. Tea cooling in a red mug.

Janie paced from window to window. Hearing an engine, she hurried to the door, flung it open and stood shivering on the wooden stoop. She eased the door closed only when a large rusted Suburban parked in the neighbor’s driveway.

Last night Joan had missed her first phone call in 15 years. Fifteen years of phone calls following twenty of sharing a bedroom, then a dorm, and finally a small apartment. Thirty five years of muttering in the darkness, connected to her twin. Years of saying goodnight and laughing about the day.

Janie hadn’t slept. Now, closing her eyes, Janie could no longer see her twin. The familiar voice in her head was silent.

On her own, Janie wandered through the morning. Picking up a book. Putting it down. Starting the shower and leaping out when the dog barked. Her eyes itched from lack of sleep. Her skin twitched. Adding a splash of brandy to her cold tea, she forced herself to drink the foul mixture and went to dress. Time for pacing had passed. It was time to take charge.