I am not alone + Writing as pathology

[rolanni]

Orlando, Florida (CNN) -- Paramedics responded to a medical call at Tiger Woods'* home in Orange County, Florida, early Tuesday, the county fire service said.

*Emphasis mine

rest of story

And!

Ten years to write a novel

Comments

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

The rate at which your novels have come out, have you ever taken ten years?

The books that eventually became Local Custom and Scout's Progress took a couple years to write, but that was when no one was buying our stuff; the projects were hobbies, really. I put them away for months at a time, both of them, but I never thought I couldn't finish them.

I think I would indeed give up before then...

Knowing what I do about the writing life, I think the fellow who wrote that article is . . .too intense for his own good.

I mean. . .Pulitzer Prize or not, what he's done is written a book. Ten years of misery is not a reasonable trade for a book (IMHO, IMHO). There are lots of books -- many people (as he admits himself) have the talent, and the drive to write books, so there's never a lack of something to read. But ten years...you only get one life, and neither his book nor his prize will give him back that decade.

I'm inclined to think that his struggle, while epic, wasn't...necessarily noble. It isn't heroic simply to struggle (corollary to: A cause is not necessarily just because someone is willing to die for it). He seemed so wedded to the Idea of himself as a writer that he couldn't even formulate a tolerably acceptable Plan B. He accepted that he was going to be miserable, no matter what he did, because he was blocked on the book.

Now, this could well have been depression, which does terrible things to one's thought processes, and could well have been the whole reason for the block -- but the writer doesn't make that connection in the article. And, yanno? Some books Just Don't Work, no matter how cool the first 75 pages are -- and he doesn't seem to have been able to consider that possibility, either.

[growlycub.livejournal.com]

And since he got a Pulitzer for it in the end, I don't think he'll ever think that decade lost, either.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

How much money goes with a Pulitzer? I confess to not knowing...

*Google-foo!*

Uh? Ten thousand clams? For ten years? And the honor, of course, but honor doesn't buy cat crunchies or happiness.

[growlycub.livejournal.com]

I agree, but to folks in the 'literary' scene these awards are so meaningful... literary folk are plain weird.

Give me a Theo story any day! :)