"your heart is a moving target"

[thanate]

There's a lot in this essay to think about, story & writing process vs publishing hustle, but this bit feels like the line between creators and the people who ask where we get our ideas from:

Storytellers are filled with potential stories, more than we can count or even describe. Some of those are fast and marketable and cleverly labeled with tropes that the right people on the internet will enjoy. Some of them are absolutely none of that. Some of them are constantly changing, because we are changing people who live in a changing world. Some have deep, deep roots in the decades of our lives. Some we thought of yesterday. Some are so detailed we can taste them. So are so nebulous they feel like nothing more than a phantom touch on the back of the neck.

Comments

[sartorias]

Oh, what a great paragraph!

[sovay]

There's a lot in this essay to think about

I liked the entire thing, as well as the paragraph you excerpt. Thanks for the link.

[halojedha]

What a stunning essay. Sitting where I'm sitting (nearly at the end of first draft of first book, unpublished, unagented) this is validating. I'm taking my time, I'm thinking carefully, and I'm writing something risky and challenging.

"I wonder what complicated, challenging, unsettling ideas are withering because the authors look at all the noise and chatter and give up because what they have is not easy to pitch or sell, not easy to write, not easy to read, and at every stage will take time and space and quiet and solitude to develop and grow."

I have to say, as someone currently trying to choose a publication route, this article is a pretty good argument for self publishing.