Advice From Norman Partridge: American Frankenstein: Building Your Resume

Absolutely awesome blog post from Norman Partridge today. So MUCH of this sums up how I feel about myself and where I am and where I want to be as a writer. Here's some awesome snippets:

"and I wonder if young writers will get that kind of one-stop-shopping glance in the rearview mirror as the years pass -- I mean, does anyone really archive their emails or (even worse) text messages? I don't think so."

I love this. At times, I wish we didn't have email at all. The nice thing about mailing out a hardcopy submission - the few times I've done it - is you get to leave it alone. Which is so freeing. Because you only check your snail mail once a day. Now, I find myself, with this wondrous thing called email, checking my email EVERY FIVE MINUTES. And that amps up the depressing even more. Sometimes, it gets so bad, I put a ban on checking my email for a few days or so.....

"Because writing is business. Oh, it can be art, too, but those battles are fought on another front, when you're alone with the page in your office."

Yes, yes, YES. Anything you write - whatever type of story - you turn into art when it's just you and the paper/computer.

"there's an easy way to size things up for yourself. Just take a look at your personal bookshelf, the one where you keep your solo work and contributor copies of anthologies and magazines where your work has appeared. Run your finger along those spines. Take your creative pulse. See if the work bound up in those volumes satisfies you or doesn't. If there are novels on those shelves you wish you hadn't written, think about the ones you should have written instead... and write 'em. Think about the books you'd like to see up there two years from now... and three years past that. Think about the publishers you've worked with and the ones you'd like to work with, and how you can position yourself to make some of those deals a reality. Think about where you've been, and where you're going, and the fiction that's going to get you there.

Make some plans. Kindle yourself some creative fire. Because it's the fire that will get you there. No matter where it comes from. No matter how you make it. It's the one thing that every writer needs to make good work.

So kindle it up, and when those flames deliver you to the keyboard be thankful.

Rattle those keys."

Every. Day. Every single day, my friends.

Read on....American Frankenstein: Building Your Resume