Now, back to writing.
quote:
"Think as I think'" said a man, "or you are abominable. You are a toad."And after I had thought on it, I said, "I will then, be a toad."
Stephen Crane
Or, as I boil it down in my simple-minded way, "I will not live my life in fear."
Thanks for the link.
mm
I have my own little Harlan Ellison story to tell. Nothing as impressive as that, but inspiring in its own odd way.
About four years ago I was a regular reader and occasional poster on the boards at www.harlanellison.com. One of the things that delighted me was that The Man himself would pop in from time to time and post a few thoughts (from someone else's computer). At the time I was still engaged in the youthful business of making an ass out of myself (I still do, but am not as industrious about it these days).
Myself and another person were engaged in a bunch of silly blather about the writing process one day. I'm not talking about the sort of shop talk you find here at Hatrack or elsewhere, but psycho-babbly stuff. Anyway, Harlan emerged on the board and verbally harangued us--in essence, he said that if we spent as much time actually writing and sending things out as we did spewing nonsense about it we might actually get published someday. (It was an exasperated rant, not one of his patented Total Destruction Rants, which is probably why I managed to survive the experience without burning to a cinder.)
From that moment on I've always tried to put my work first.
Because he's right.
Edit: Clarified a couple of things.
[This message has been edited by ScottMiller (edited March 09, 2005).]