Monday, April 16, 2007

Confessions -3 The Gloating Stage Part II

The letter below came at the exact perfect time. I was very upset that day, and had just woken up from a nap designed to let my brain process several troubling issues of the moment, and then I went downstairs to where the computer was and...

There it was. The letter I had been waiting for four two months.

I had just been complaining in my head because, as the author of the book, I intimately know its details, and have been with it so long and seen so many bad drafts of it that my general opinion of the thing is, though I love it to death, that it sucks.

Which made the arrival of this email all the more sweet.

And now we shall briefly discuss what to do when you get good writing news, part deux:

As is true for most young writers, winning some form of acceptance is not only a good thing for the mood and ego, but a chance go totally push it in the face of those who thought you couldn't do it, or in general don't like you.

Unless this can be done with the utmost tact, I highly recommend against it.

Once this kind of news gets leaked to a few people, say... your favorite teacher, word gets around. You can even stage it so you tell said teacher in the beginning of class when other students are around. This makes it look like you only wanted to tell the teacher, but other students overheard, and then you get to talk to them about it.

Like I said, word travels. You would much rather have the person you want to impress hear it from someone else and have to ask you about it than tell them yourself and be thought of as stuck-up (forgive the colloquialism), wouldn't you?



CAREER IDEA:

Begin a mailing list of people who wished to be informed of your career progress. I've got four teachers on mine. Teachers love to stay in contact with their ex-students and see what's going on in their lives; chances are you won't be intruding.

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