Kick in pants

Those of you who felt your souls tingle when reading the Nora Roberts interview in the latest RWR are not alone. She laughed in the face of every pansy-ass artiste who wants to suffer for their work. We write genre fiction (The Stuff People Like To Read), and if we’re really lucky, we do it in our pajamas. Cut out the bullshit.

I know that I, for one, will be reading it every time I feel a complaint or a bout of “writer’s block” coming on.

And I’m also considering adding this blog post by Golden Heart finalist, Bombshell author, and recent RITA award winner Stephanie Feagan. I find this letter to be all the more powerful considering that it comes in the midst of swirling rumors that Stef’s line is about to be canceled. Is she complaining? No, she’s out kicking ass. (Pink would no doubt be proud.)

The whole thing is worth reading, but an excerpt to whet your appetite:

This is hard – if it was easy, everyone would do it. Write not because you think it’s cool or because you can make a lot of money, or because of any reason except that you LOVE to write. If you don’t love it – give up now, because no one can make it in this business if they don’t love writing. It’s too hard, too brutal. Lines fold, editors leave – so what you make one sale? Then you want to make the second, and so on. Without the passion and the love for the craft, it’s a hopeless battle. Dumb luck can get someone published – but it’s passion that’ll get them published again – and again.

Amen, Ms. Feagan.

When I complain (because we all have those days — rotten rejections, bad reviews, etc.) Sailor Boy says to me: “You have to realize, Diana. The thing you want to do? No one gets to do that. No one gets to be a writer for a living. You want to be a rock star.”

I’d say more, but Stephanie already said all there was to say, and as brutally as it needed to be said. Go read what she wrote, and then read the Nora Roberts interview again, and then, if you’re involved in the TARA BookChallenge, read Erica’s post. They all boil down to the same thing: Just do it.

Toughen up, suck it up, stop complaining, stop talking about “good enough”, stop saying “but such-and-such managed to get published,” and just write.

Okay. Off to write. Later!