Personal Note: I am a measuring freak of Nature. No kidding. I can eyeball just about anything to within a tenth of what's needed (in other words, within a tenth of an inch, or a tenth of a cup). With time I can tell you within seven minutes what time it is, without a watch, and when in a car I can mentally calculate the practical aspects of velocity and other sides of physics. Couldn't tell you the actual numbers to save my soul, but I can tell you if you're unbalanced when hanging a frame, or too flat or too sharp when playing a note, and I can tell the right degree of 'done' when cooking based solely on smell.
Measuring. It's all relative.
I know I generally try to post helpful writerly hints and tips and whatnot, but today I'm going to show a bit of my humanity and admit How Strange something seems to me. Not 'wrong' strange, but 'unfamiliar' strange.
If you took a writer's career and made a pie of it, cut it into quarters, each one representing a stage of progress, I'd be sitting on the cake knife and it rested between the first and second quarter. In other words, I'm not so new to everything that I've got no clue, but I'm not to the point where I'm full-steam-ahead, either, and the reason for this is because I am exercising my tiny PATIENCE muscle and telling myself I can start submitting anything for consideration untl I've checked EVERYTHING. It's the narrow path, peeps, and let me tell you it's a hard walk, but it will be SO WORTH IT.
So, I follow a lot of writerly blogs. You can see which ones of you look to your left and down a little. Often when I read the comments there are a bunch of unpubbed newbies like me, but sometimes there are published and/or agented commenters in there, too. And it's like we live in different universes, seriously.
From where I am, here on my cake knife, getting an agent is my Great Big Goal to work toward. I'm shining my apple for my perfect teacher. And I feel like I still need a pair of binoculars to see her desk. But then, for a moment, when I read the comments of Those People in the Other Reality who've got agents already, it really seems like they've got some sight-seeing equipment of their own, only they're all focused on selling their book.
And that seems so bizarre for me. They scaled the freakin' mountain already and can see the skyline I'd kill to be seeing, right? Don't misunderstand; I don't resent them or think in any way they aren't deserving of the view (they TOTALLY are), but it kind of blows my mind that people who've succeeded where I'm still dreaming are still facing the same sorts of trials I am, only scarier, like hitting the next level in a video game.
My friend Shaun tells me Sephiroth, the final boss fight in the renowned Final Fantasy VII, is actually too easy. I wonder if I'll feel that way when I get to the end of my pie.
For an awesome rendition of Sephiroth go see Wen-JR over at DeviantArt.
2 comments:
There's always a goal to set your sights on. That's what makes life interesting (and frustrating). I hope that I never stop setting goals for myself—and that I keep achieving them.
it's the great thing about writing. the pie always gets bigger. you never finish it. you never say "ah, i've made it now." i know writers who've had agents for years, and still aren't published. i know writers who had a book published, but can't even get an agent for their second book. but they keep writing.
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