Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Not (really) spouting my miseries. Okay, Am.
Broken car heater in middle of winter. Hard drive crashed and all was unrepairable, lost all passwords and software (luckily I backed up my writing THIS time), new Firefox refused my old passwords (that I had stored in a book), all after spending a week getting used to an alternate computer, have been spending money and time-time-time reinstalling old software... (and there was more of this...)
And this was just the small stuff...

But I woke up this morning and had to watch lovely figure skating. I never watch golf, but I followed ice-skating (which I actually found inspirational) by watching the golf channel. I NEVER watch the golf channel. I don't know why people hit little balls around with metal sticks and everyone is just hush-hush and awestruck.To me, it just seems so odd.(Found out I like Arnold. He hosted. He's really a nice guy.). Still don't like golf though, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

And THEN: (tada!) I watched the absolutely WORST made-for-tv sci-fi channel movie EVER from start to finish. (Listed it before, but thought it better to remove the title out of courtesy to the screenwriter - but I imagine you get my drift - such movies, though curiously, do seem to be produced.)

But it is the perfect cure, watching from start to finish, (but oh where oh where is my Mystery Science Theatre 3000 when I need it), completely alone and even vulnerable, unable to pull myself away while I subjected myself to an utterly plotless, poorly acted, characterless, B-movie.

It's therapy, my friends.

After that, I KNOW I can write.

(Back to work when Microsoft word finishes updating after 20016 updates from my old version.)

It's the little things! Glad your faith in your abilities was restored (reconfirmed?).

Find inspiration were you can! Great story.

Great story indeed. The greatest and best medication would have to be finding inspiration, writing a book and at the end of the day self publishing it. If this goes well enough and you make plenty of dollars with it, then you definitely are cut to be a writer and you will also feel like you know how to write.

See? For me it's just frustrating. When I see that crap on tv and compare it to my own work and that of struggling writers of my acquaintance - published and unpublished, I can only shake my head and wonder who the author of this or that POS is sleeping with! I know people who have written exceptionally good work but can't get more than a nod from most agents. All I can do is commiserate with them and offer them sympathy and encouragement.

There is a lot of really good work floating around in search of an agent/publisher. I've read it. I've even written some of it. (Although, despite a few of my works being published, I may doubt my own level of standing among the literati I have no doubts about the quality of the works of others which I have read.) I simply cannot understand some of what passes for "good" writing anymore. But, then, I'm not sure agents and publishers are necessarily looking for "good" writing but merely what sells. And that doesn't have to be good at all. :[