Monday, January 28, 2008

Even More Competition


This story from the Los Angeles Times made me wince. It hadn't occurred to me that in addition to the writers' strike consigning us all to a springtime of reality shows sprouting up like weeds, it will also pose a new challenge to authors (like myself) hoping to break into the ranks of the publishing world.

Those people who are able to spin teleplays to us over the TV screens are looking for something else to fill their time as the strike continues. So they've turned back to the novels they said they'd write "eventually." Well, Eventually has arrived, and these people should have the discipline to actually finish their work, unlike the people like me who have strong drafts that need a little tweaking but who put that off to do things like attend a Burns Supper on a Saturday night and recover the next morning (to read, mostly).

Ok, that's not so bad. People have to enjoy life in order to write well about it. And I'm not truly threatened by the "increased" competition that's out there, primarily because the industry is so difficult to get into any way that these other writers don't really scare me. What's another hundred zombies (ick) when you're already up against ten thousand?

So bring it on, writers' strike! Challenge me! Challenge us all. As long as we all get some good books out of it, I say: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the competition, I will fear no evil.

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