Hampton Court, England. Photo courtesy of Pippin Photography. It hit me again. That anxiety. I've actually blogged about it before. And then I have deleted it, embarrassed to admit it. I paralyze myself with fear. I listen to somebody's advice: should you really be self-publishing, again? You will never land a traditional publisher if you do. Believe me, I know; a friendly adviser tells me.
But that is not the worst of it. The worst is being addicted to the blogs that are so prolific now on 'how to write'. Let me recap a few contradictions that have sent me over the edge lately. When writing dialogue NEVER EVER use italics to emphasize a point. It is overkill. So says one blogger that seems to know what she is talking about given her MFA credentials from some highfalutin school I've never heard of. The reader should be able to decipher for themselves, she says with such conviction it must be true.
Oh wait, let's reconsider. Because a day later I read from another - younger blogger mind you, one that graduated from an MFA program in the past 5 years or so from another competing highfalutin school - that using italics as emphasis is especially important in YA genre. For example: "I never slept with him." Is very different indeed from "I never slept with him."
There I go back to my manuscript, unchanging the changes I made to the emphasis words, putting back the italics I took out the day before.
It hit me today (for other reasons that have nothing to do with editing or style) that I am losing my own voice. I am forgetting why I am writing this damn story to begin with. It is because I enjoy it. Yes I care that it is edited and proofread and consistent. But if I pay too much attention to all of the noise around me my art won't be much good anyway. Nobody will want to read it.
I have a story to tell damn it, and I intend to tell it my way, using my voice. I've invested a lot of my personal savings and time and have cross checked every historical reference I could find. I have a list of others I need to seek out. I am serious about this project. And I am not going to lose sight of that no matter what others might have to say. And I am going to share it. What, after all, would be the point?
That's why I'm doing this.
But that is not the worst of it. The worst is being addicted to the blogs that are so prolific now on 'how to write'. Let me recap a few contradictions that have sent me over the edge lately. When writing dialogue NEVER EVER use italics to emphasize a point. It is overkill. So says one blogger that seems to know what she is talking about given her MFA credentials from some highfalutin school I've never heard of. The reader should be able to decipher for themselves, she says with such conviction it must be true.
Oh wait, let's reconsider. Because a day later I read from another - younger blogger mind you, one that graduated from an MFA program in the past 5 years or so from another competing highfalutin school - that using italics as emphasis is especially important in YA genre. For example: "I never slept with him." Is very different indeed from "I never slept with him."
There I go back to my manuscript, unchanging the changes I made to the emphasis words, putting back the italics I took out the day before.
It hit me today (for other reasons that have nothing to do with editing or style) that I am losing my own voice. I am forgetting why I am writing this damn story to begin with. It is because I enjoy it. Yes I care that it is edited and proofread and consistent. But if I pay too much attention to all of the noise around me my art won't be much good anyway. Nobody will want to read it.
I have a story to tell damn it, and I intend to tell it my way, using my voice. I've invested a lot of my personal savings and time and have cross checked every historical reference I could find. I have a list of others I need to seek out. I am serious about this project. And I am not going to lose sight of that no matter what others might have to say. And I am going to share it. What, after all, would be the point?
That's why I'm doing this.
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