Plei, the thing about bone-chilling rejections is that they generally have fuck all to do with your ability to write. Mostly, you aren't commercial. They don't know how to "niche" you (yes, I've heard it used as a damned verb). Your "shelf-marketing strategy" is "obscure."

Signed, Cross-Over Writer Who Has Heard This Shite Before.

So I like keeping to my delusion that I'm an acceptable enough hack, and this way no one can tell me otherwise.

Yes, this. I have a very difficult time letting anyone see my non-fannish writings. Especially when they're people I know and/or respect. I've actually given scripts to someone and then told them not to read them. It was this, combined with my utter lack of self-promotion ability, that led to me giving up writing as a career path.

Oh, just like any job, really. Oddly, especially in my field.

And my brain knows that, it really does. But the part of me that was last to be picked for any sport? It simply refuses to believe that it ain't personal.

It simply refuses to believe that it ain't personal.

Well, you can write.

So Sayeth I.

Deal with that, ma'am.

bitterchick, part of the deal for me is that I literally try and shove any ego investment in a drawer. Is it good work? Am I uncertain about that? Then I'd best be showing it to people and if a sufficient number of them tell me it sucks, I should probably look at it and see if I agree.

I wish I knew had to do that. The separating myself from the work thing. I mean, I've written stuff that I felt was crap, which never saw the light of day. And I've written stuff that I'm very proud of, which, oddly enough, also never sees the light of day.

I've wondered if I should write under a pseudonym. Because I'm okay with anonymously submitting my stuff to contests. I just get incredibly freaked out by sending anything to someone I know when my name is on the title page.

Professionally, I've had too many people rewrite my words to take it personally. Four years in consulting and three years working for the military will do that. Sure, fine, fix it how you like, whatever.

That's bled over a bit into the fiction. I'll argue, and I may fix it or not, but you're not going to hurt my feelings. t pauses to stare meaningfully at Nutty

I write every frelling day, and even if it's analysis, it's writing. And I'm the best writer in my office. So it's not fiction, it's still something.

It would be nice to have written a novel at some point, though. I keep thinking I need to try that.

bitterchick, why don't you do that then? Use a(nother) pseud and see how folks react.

My sister (nine years my senior) spent years in journalism; she wrote articles, rock and roll review, essays, coverage. But I had to pry the first draft of her novel out of her hands because she was doing the whole "Oh, this is fiction, I can't possibly show this to anyone!"

OK. Query: it's now 1100 pages long. Was this merely an emotional diuretic, never meant to achieve any status in your life beyond whatever it does to your head and heart to write it? Because if you're seriously writing it, and it's a novel, which you keep saying it is, you might want to consider the fact that most novels are written with this odd idea in mind: that other people are going to read it at some point. I'm just sayin'.

She finally handed it over with a "don't hurt me" vibe I could have cut with a knife. It was damned good, but it wasn't a novel. It was five of them. She's spent so much time compulsively writing, refusing to show it to anyone, clutching it to her breast like a secret sin, that it had bolted on her. She separated out the strands, figured out that she didn't need all nine major characters intertwined on a molecular level of minutiae for every page, took a deep breath, and trimmed.

She now has three novels. She alternates between working on each one. Getting married in her mid-fifties has kind of distracted her, though.

And now we come to the other issue. I've become somewhat...disenchanted with screenwriting for a variety of stupid reasons. I keep waiting for it to pass. Hoping that one day, I'll actually be moved to find my Final Draft CD to install it because I need to write something.

It's been a year and a half. I'm pretty sure it's gone for good.

It's been a year and a half. I'm pretty sure it's gone for good.

Not necessarily. I didn't write a single word of fiction for 10 years. Then I discovered the Buffistas, fanfic, and slash. And now I remember how much I enjoy writing.

And maybe it won't come back - but maybe something else will come.