It takes a year

Well, I started this blog a year ago, and now I think I'm ready for the first entry. I suppose this makes me either the world's most egregious slacker or perhaps someone neurotically (psychotically) contemplative. Was it Flaubert who was said to spend all morning inserting a comma and the afternoon taking it back out? That's me, only it's probably a sentence I'll end up trashing later on.

My father was always one for not doing work twice--an example: carrying the trash can to the door, only to carry it to the outside can later. It's a little funny I'd end up spending half my life doing double, triple, quadruple the work writing, revising, trashing, writing, revising, rejection, etc. When he asks how the writing is going, I tell him the words came out right the first time. This very second, he is calling on the cell phone asking me to proofread one of his legal brief. (I didn't answer. I'm so bad.)

Okay, to the point. I just finished reading an excellent blog by Kate Flora, a lengthy expose about trying to live the life of a published writer. Her words have pushed me off the fence of my Prufrockian indecisiveness. I had to share, and thus becomes my first blog entry. Aside from being scarily accurate and a touch depressing, Kate's piece is a must-read, a caveat emptor, to anyone thinking of persisting in this writing mess. As an old professor advised: "Quit if you can." And if you can't? Well, don't go reading Kate's blog with any sharp objects within reach.

Here’s the Truth: Staying Published is like Spending Twenty Years on Survivor