#1000
So it looks like next Friday -- assuming everything goes according to plan -- will be the 1,000 sketch I've posted.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I mean, I guess I'm pretty pleased with myself -- I like writing these things -- but I'm still not sure what exactly I'm trying to do with all of this stuff. Make friends and influence people? I'm still pretty dilletantish about all of this, dabbling my toes in the pool of Actually Writing Things, but at the same time that's almost 200,000 words dropped into the uneasy lap of the internet, and long enough to qualify as a Webcomic Long Runner on TVTropes.
Gene Wolfe says (in the excellent book of essays and commentaries Castle of the Otter) that there are 3 pieces of advice for writers:
1. Don't. If you can stop yourself from writing, you are not a writer. (But you may not be a writer even if you cannot stop yourself.)
2. Read. No matter what you may long to believe, you cannot become a writer without tens of thousands of hours of reading. You cannot please the master [meaning the reader] until you have been a master and know what is pleasing.
3. Write. Writers do it. Would-be writers do not. Just as you can't learn to swim without floundering around in the water a lot, you cannot learn to write without writing. Harlan Ellison tells his would-be writer audiences that they should write a short story every day -- three hundred and sixty-five little stories over the next year. Is Harlan grandstanding with a piece of ridiculously exaggerated advice? No.
Have I learned anything from all this business? Maybe. Not much. A little bit about what to say and what not to say, a tiny bit about making boring ideas interesting (hint: don't show anything more than you have to, Andrew; words are like cards in poker, or like a naked hip, always more powerful when only glimpsed), a little bit about bloodymindedness. Still. Where is all this going? Who knows?
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I mean, I guess I'm pretty pleased with myself -- I like writing these things -- but I'm still not sure what exactly I'm trying to do with all of this stuff. Make friends and influence people? I'm still pretty dilletantish about all of this, dabbling my toes in the pool of Actually Writing Things, but at the same time that's almost 200,000 words dropped into the uneasy lap of the internet, and long enough to qualify as a Webcomic Long Runner on TVTropes.
Gene Wolfe says (in the excellent book of essays and commentaries Castle of the Otter) that there are 3 pieces of advice for writers:
1. Don't. If you can stop yourself from writing, you are not a writer. (But you may not be a writer even if you cannot stop yourself.)
2. Read. No matter what you may long to believe, you cannot become a writer without tens of thousands of hours of reading. You cannot please the master [meaning the reader] until you have been a master and know what is pleasing.
3. Write. Writers do it. Would-be writers do not. Just as you can't learn to swim without floundering around in the water a lot, you cannot learn to write without writing. Harlan Ellison tells his would-be writer audiences that they should write a short story every day -- three hundred and sixty-five little stories over the next year. Is Harlan grandstanding with a piece of ridiculously exaggerated advice? No.
Have I learned anything from all this business? Maybe. Not much. A little bit about what to say and what not to say, a tiny bit about making boring ideas interesting (hint: don't show anything more than you have to, Andrew; words are like cards in poker, or like a naked hip, always more powerful when only glimpsed), a little bit about bloodymindedness. Still. Where is all this going? Who knows?