Nicholas Sparks makes me feel like I'm walking across a theatre floor where a dozen sodas have been spilled.
When I was in San Francisco for the Romance Writers of America conference back in July, a couple of friends and I escaped to the nearby movie theatre to go see Dark Knight. During the previews, they were showing the trailer for Nights in Rodanthe and all of us leaned forward because hey, Diane Lane, Richard Gere, who can do a decent romantic leading man, beautiful setting, looked like a touching story... until they got the end of the trailer and the voiceover intoned, "Based on the bestselling novel by Nicholas Sparks."
Hand to God, all of us simultaneously slumped back in our seats with the most disgusted noises.
I am amused.
I went back to writer-readers on Library Thing--slow work day, looking to indulge some intellectual masochism--and I found the guy who was most adamant about how true, important writing can only be done on paper.
He's become so tired of publishers not appreciating the transcendent art he produces that he has bypassed that process and now puts everything on his website. But, he assures us, he's struggled with every word. Afer all, "What experienced authors can teach us most is just the sheer amount of work and strife and pain the writing life entails. Aspiring scribes should be under no illusion--years of anonymity, a marginal existence, often accompany a life devoted to the arts. Success and rewards will be a long time coming (if at all)."
I know, I know, I need to stop obsessing about this guy. But he's just so dedicated. His wife and kids go camping without him, they watch videos without him, because his Muse demands so much of him. (She's the one with the job, by the way.)
Ah, the heck with it. I've got WIPs on my hard drive that I could be working on instead, and this quiet day won't last forever.
Oh god, link me? I could use this guy as my own personal muse of putting my fucking shoulder to the wheel before I become him.
Here's the thread I most recently looked at.
[link]
Look for CliffBurns. He's in several places. You'll know him when you read him.
This guy is AWESOME, Connie. I'm trying so hard to not LOL at my desk. Totally cheered me up.
He's especially venomous in the blogging threads, where he rips into people who lack his reverence for the sacred art putting words on paper.
Has he ever been published?
You know, I periodically run into the Writer (say it with awe) mystique. Used to work with a woman who called herself a writer ... I saw what she produced for business writing. She could not write a simple declarative sentence. (I understand she wrote a romance novel and it was rejected with a note that it was the worst thing the reader - editor? hazardous waste manager? - had ever read.)
Me, I write an article that goes in our monthly publication. It's not deathless prose, it gets me no notice (it's published without a byline), but it's decent work. The grammar and spelling are (mostly) correct, it makes sense, people actually read it. But I don't consider myself a writer (much less a Writer).
I don't think so, though perhaps in some small press magazine. I would think he'd be touting his credentials.
I'm sure his website, which he helpfully gives in the writing class thread, would tell you.
