Musing.

I was just pointed in the direction of this link on Twitter: 20 Questions You Can Ask to Tell If You're a Real Live Writer. I was just going to share the link, but then it occurred to me to treat it as a meme of sorts, assessing my responses to each question, so here goes:

1. Can you make time to write most days? I'd be in trouble if I couldn't, wouldn't I?

2. Can you tell stories (or even lie) really well? I'm a terrible liar. As for whether I tell stories well...I tend to leave that assessment to a small number of trusted individuals. I can't really be objective, can I?

3. Can you voraciously learn from other writers' talents? I hope so. I certainly try to.

4. Can you carry a notepad around and write down ideas all the time? Yes. That's one of the numerous things in my bag.

5. Can you stay home and write when your friends are out; not watch TV; not browse the web? Yes, of course. It always rather surprises me that so many treat writing as a chore to be endured: yes, there are days/sessions/scenes that feel that way, but if sitting down to write is usually or always something you do under sufferance, why would you want to be a writer?

6. Can you to put down a story you think isn't going well and move on to something else? Yep, done it - last year, if memory serves. I abandoned something to work on the WIP, and I'm glad I did.

7. Can you pick up a story you put down a long time ago and not think it's total crap? I surprised myself by doing this fairly recently, when I found a short I wrote years ago. Don't get me wrong - it's years old, written before I started writing Mirrors, so I wouldn't want to present it now as an example of what I flatter myself by calling my abilities, but I didn't hate it, and I'd expected to.

8. Can you tolerate jerky rejection slips that say things like "Yup. It's another rejection."? (A journal responded to one of my stories this way. I won't resubmit or subscribe soon). I get/got by with them. Usually I just sighed, cast aside the letter or archived the email and moved on, although occasionally a particularly arrogant sort has thrown my mood out for days. I managed to get back on an even keel, though.

9. Can you not freak when someone you know tells you they didn't like what you wrote? I never ask people I know that question; saves us both being put in that position.

10. Can you put up with people who make reptilian faces when you tell them you're a writer? Yes, I just make them back when they tell me what they do.

11. Can you empathize with with people you disagree with (or even find reprehensible)? In fiction, yes (at least as far as my own characters are concerned). In real life, no. Not sure how that works.

12. Can you promote yourself and your talents without feeling arrogant? No, but fortunately I have someone to do that for me who's far better at it than I am!

13. Can you get over being jealous of other writers' success? It depends on the writer and the level of their success, really, if I'm honest.

14. Can you write about topics that make you uncomfortable? Yes; I'm doing it right now. (Well...not right now, because I'm writing this, but you know what I mean.) As awkward as it is, I find it really helps the words to flow.

15. Can you write about topics that will make your family or friends uncomfortable? When Trades came out, I got a letter from my Nana telling me how much she'd enjoyed it. Imagine that! But it just goes to show you - perhaps the question in my case should be "Can you write things you'll dread your family reading, but that will probably bother you more than them?".

16. Can you write outside genres you're familiar with? I confess I don't fully understand why this made the list. Why is that necessary? Surely you'll make the best job of something you know well - would you want a joiner to install the gas pipes in your home, or would you rather someone with that specific knowledge did it? If I were to try to write sci-fi, the result wouldn't be a patch on the efforts of an aficionado of the genre.

17. Can you read your own work out loud? If I'm alone and 'sounding out' what I've just written, yes. In the sense of giving readings - no, I'm terrible at it, I've discovered.

18. Can you meet the challenge of putting words together to make something beautiful? Again, if I couldn't, I'd have a problem!

19. Can you keep writing even though you don't love the scene you're working on? Ah yes, the connective stuff! I'm germinating a blog post about this sort of stuff, actually - the difference between the scenes you don't enjoy writing because they're not going well and those you don't particularly enjoy writing but aren't going badly; it's just that they're less interesting than some of the other stuff in the story. It's on the way.

20. Can you accept the reality that you may never be able to support yourself as a writer? I'm in two minds about this being included on the list, as well. Of course keeping a realistic attitude is important, but equally I think that in the case of most published authors, telling people this has a tiny element of 'do as I say, not as I do' - if we were all so philosophical and accepting of the reality that publication and earning from one's writing are difficult goals to achieve, nobody would ever keep slogging on through the rejections until they got lucky. I know it could be argued that it's possible to do that with the thought always in the back of your mind that it may not work, and that's probably the balance you have to strike in order to best approach the situation, but again: if you weren't really hoping for success, any sane person would give up the submissions procedure as an exercise in demented masochism. (Try explaining it to an outsider: time-consuming, expensive if you have to pay postage for submissions, extremely wounding to one's pride and confidence and with a very slim chance of success - objectively speaking, who would ever sign up to such a challenge?!) So perhaps my advice would be to hope for the best and plan for the worst.