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Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Inspiration versus Desperation

Do you tweet?  I've been Twitter-pated since shortly after Twitter appeared on the social network scene.  I find it a small but satisfying challenge to state feelings or events in that little 140 character window; my goal is to get as close to 140 as possible without going over.

Anyway, I follow several agents and publishing companies.  One of them writes a blog with a weekly featured called "How I Got My Agent".  You'd think that would be something good for a writer to read and follow, right?

Sure.  So I've read some of them.  And each one I read, I would think. . ."Hmmm.  That didn't seem like a very tough process for that one.  Well, maybe it's just a fluke."  But no.  The next writer would share a similar story.  I didn't really catch on until I checked out some of the dates in these columns and realized how fast things are happening for these lucky folk.  What made it worse was that I recognized some of the names of the agents who were signing the column authors.

This is very depressing.  It's the kind of thing that makes me want to bang my head against a wall and ask myself why I'm continuing on what sometimes feels like a futile quest.

I know that the blog doesn't feature this column to make non-agented writers desperate.  I know it's supposed to inspire us.  And maybe it's state of mind that makes me see the agent-glass as half-empty.

Whatever, I've decided to stop reading that column and focus on inspiration.  I'm checking out writing conferences and trying to decide what will work best for me this year, because one thing I am learning everywhere is that it's who you know that makes a difference.

And I'm reminding myself of something I wrote a few posts back:  I would be doing this--writing--even if I knew I would never be published.  I'm doing it for love of the process.

And it would be awesome if someone else loved my process, too!

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