It is not the critic who counts

Eat, pee, walk in the woods

You see, for the past few days I have been putting together material for my launch on Saturday. I am having the usual trepidations that no one will come. I have agreed to give a presentation - they're calling it a workshop - called "how to keep on keepin' on" - likely the worst title ever, but the point is, I don't want to give any kind of lecture on technique, which is a private thing. But I DO know about this, about survival as an artist, about climbing back on the horse again and again and again (and bloody again). Writers are high idealists, and reality clashes hard, time and time again.

Can I help anybody with this? Who can tell. I've had to overcome being stuck, being terrified, then feeling like a total fraud because I never sell any books. Today I wrote nearly four typewritten single-spaced pages however. The ideas just tumbled out. Now I will have to cut them down. I'm getting there. I need to go eat, pee, walk in the woods. Come to think of it, that would be a good title for a writer's self-help book.

p. s. Below is a quote that keeps on popping up in my life, and it occurred to me that it sums up all I was trying to say in preparing my presentation for the launch. Lots of people talk about the novel they're going to write, even outline the characters, situation, etc, generally talk about it endlessly, and somehow-or-other it just never gets done. Meanwhile they poke a lot of holes in the person who went ahead and did it. Don't let the slightly archaic language phase you. Read it out loud. It's truth. Go get 'em, Teddy.