A New Year Begins, An Old Heaviness Remains
JANUARY (7 books | 2,036 pgs)
01.) The Game Master's Book of Villains, Minions, and Their Tactics (Game Manual, 256 pgs) | 4/5
02.) The Game Master's Book of Traps, Puzzles and Dungeons (Game Manual, 256 pgs) | 4/5
03.) Loteria by Cynthia Pelayo (Stories & Poetry, 344 pgs) | 3/5
04.) The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (Novel, 528 pgs) | 2/5
05.) Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware (Graphic Novel, 384 pgs) | 3/5
06.) Root Rot by Saskia Nislow (Novella, 140 pgs) | 3/5
07.) The Undead by Johan Egerkrans (Art, 128 pgs) | 4/5
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I am late in posting my monthly reading list and personal updates. The new job is full of wonderful people and challenging work, but I often feel like my productivity is being used inefficiently. There are ways to mitigate this, and I'm working on it.
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Recently in a local author post about literary events, I saw someone tout that an author friend of theirs was celebrating their 200th book release. The author in question is *maybe* in their 30s. My immediate reaction wasn't "wow, good for them" it was "there's no way their prose is good, nor could their stories be edited well." Having not read the books, I'm obviously casting hyper-biased suspicion here, but experience tells me I'm probably not far off the mark.
Quantity rarely finds its equal in quality, but quantity has certainly been celebrated amongst some of the authors I've seen bubble up in the last few years. The drive to pump out content en masse has been galling to watch, if only because it tells me that proper time is not being taken and that corners are almost certainly being cut in order to simply have more things for others to buy. Or it's all being written by AI. Neither reality being any better than the other, clearly.
Then again, what does it matter to me or my audience? I write a completely different style of book than they do, and I have zero control over what the vast majority of the reading public wants to read—both points I've stated numerous times to others. So why should I care so much?
Mostly because I think it sets another unrealistic expectation on potential writers who want to become a part of an industry in which it is already absurdly difficult to catch even a small break. I'll be the first to admit I latched onto the trope of Unsober Writer with Grand Delusions as easily as most. But, there was still work being done. I spent untold hours drinking and smoking cigarettes in my friend's garage many late nights while working on two separate manuscripts for my undergrad degree.
When grad school came, I transferred that zeal into writing most weekends and changing up my sleeping schedule in order to find more time to write. I averaged at least 100 pages a semester for in-class critique, on top of working on multiple projects outside of that scope—I treated grad school like it was the last time I'd ever do anything worthy with my talents. My output was perpetual and while there were some weeks I didn't write a thing, the words mostly flowed during those years. Same, too, once school was done.
On top of all this, I was spending time submitting stories out for publication, itself practically a whole other unpaid job I was working considering how much time I spent on the endeavor.
Having put in the time and the effort personally, I guess I just question unrealistic milestones where the quantity of the supposed ouput elicits the perception that quality was never part of the equation. I'm also quick to criticize in some things, so I asked our in-house writers what they thought of such a thing, wondering if I was perhaps off the mark with my feelings. Unsurprisingly, they had the same reaction I did.
I guess I'm just trying to fight against the enshittification of my hobbies as much as possible wherever I'm able. Those moments are feeling fewer and further between, however.
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I have some new literary events coming up this year. I'm trying to be judicious about them as I'd really prefer to have one of the two books I'm working on ready to go by the end of the year, but that may be tough with the way things are going currently. Regardless, three of my four events are confirmed but I'm anxiously awaiting word on the fourth (and last of the year).
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